Burma

Burma, officially known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is a repressive and oligarchic country in Southeast Asia wedged between India and China. It's not a functioning country so much as it is a Buddhist version of the Soviet Union, meaning a corrupt regime that uses police-state tactics to suppress a diverse ethnic makeup. Burma's capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city is Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon and formerly Burma's capital).

“”In 2016, the Myanmar military intensified its decades-long persecution of the Rohingya, setting fire to their villages, throwing their babies into fires, raping their women, and decapitating their boys.

—Charles Dunst, American Southeast Asia policy journalist.[1]

Although the group we now think of as the Burmese set up shop here around the Ninth Century and brought Theravada Buddhism with them, the region has always been diverse. The region's ethnic minorities, including the Bamar, the Chin, the Shan, the Mon, the Karen, and the Rakhine maintained their own cultures even through a succession of powerful Burmese-majority kingdoms. As that was going on, people in the Arakan region of Burma traded with the Muslim caliphates to the east and decided that they quite liked this new religion, with much of the population there converting.

By the Nineteenth Century, the Burmese Konbaung dynasty had established a state which bumped up against the Qing dynasty to the east and the British Empire to the west. That was a bad place to be, and it didn't take too long for the Brits to start bumping back. After three rapid wars, the British East India Company seized control of the entire Burmese region and integrated it all into its Indian subcontinental holdings. Burma didn't regain its independence until 1948, during the same process as the absolute clusterfuck that was the partition of the subcontinent between India and Pakistan. Although it was originally a democratic republic, a coup in 1962 brought the Burma Socialist Programme Party into power as a military-backed dictatorship. Ethnic civil war broke out between Burma's various peoples, and the ruling regime went on to commit a nice little batch of crimes against humanity.

Then, in 1988, Burma's great white hope emerged: Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi emerged as a leading figure in the pro-democracy protests of 1988. When the military dictatorship finally caved and held surprisingly free elections in 1990, Suu Kyi's party won in a landslide. That would have been a nice end to things, but then the dictatorship panicked, arrested Suu Kyi and most of her party, and and decided that the best way to restore order was with extra dictatorship. That didn't really work for them, and by 2010, more elections followed and the military junta finally disbanded itself. In 2015, elections brought Aung San Suu Kyi's party into both houses of the legislature and made her "State Counsellor", which is equivalent to Prime Minister.

So, that's the happy ending, right? Nope. The military still dominates Burma's politics, human rights abuses have continued, and Suu Kyi quickly became an international pariah for seemingly doing nothing to stop her country's escalating genocide against the Muslim Rohingya people in Arakan.[1] By February 2021 the military got rid of her and put the nation right back where it started. That's the funny thing about political "revolutions" with the gigantic quotes - just like astronomical ones they tend to go in circles. Nothing changed under Suu Kyi's iron hammer, regardless of whether you think she was a liar or corrupted by power, and nothing will change with the military back in charge. So it goes.

Oh, it is also worth noting that, since 2016, Burma's democracy index score went down bad. This makes Suu Kyi's claims of democracy even more preposterous, and with her out of power, it's not as if the score will climb. Indeed, with the military in charge, it will keep going down, fast.

About the name

You've probably noticed by now that we're stubbornly calling the country "Burma" in this article despite the fact that the United Nations and most maps have it listed as "Myanmar." That's because the name of this country is actually a matter of strong dispute within it as well as abroad. Technically, the naming thing shouldn't even matter since Bama and Myanma sound basically the same in the Burmese language and both refer to the dominant Burmese ethnic group.[2] In practice, the naming issue became a political football tossed between Suu Kyi's democracy movement and the military junta.

In 1989, to curry popular support after the pro-democracy uprisings, the military dictatorship changed the country's name from "Burma" to "Myanmar", ostensibly because the former name is what the British used.[3] The regime also changed some city names from their old colonial labels, most notably "Rangoon" to "Yangon."

The problem was that the pro-democracy movement and Suu Kyi in particular didn't believe that the military dictatorship had the endorsement of the people, thus meaning that its laws were illegitimate and its renaming shouldn't have been honored.[4] Several notable countries like the United States and the United Kingdom sided with Suu Kyi and stuck with Burma.

Normally, we here at Rationalwiki would use the UN definition, but in this case we're taking the position that military dictators can go fuck themselves. That being said, both names are still considered legitimate even when Suu Kyi was in power.[5]

Historical overview

Early history

Humans have existed in Burma for around 25,000 years or so, although other hominid species long predated ours.[6] The ancient inhabitants of Burma seem to be among the first groups of people to start making bronze and domesticating poultry and pigs.[7] There's also cultural evidence indicating that the ancient residents of Burma had fairly extensive contact with the ancient peoples of China and India.

By the Second Century BCE, the ancient peoples were building city-states across much of the Burma region. Many of these communities were founded by the Pyu people, who probably migrated in from somewhere in Tibet or southern China.[8] After spending a few centuries intermarrying with the locals, the Pyu people became what we now know as the modern Burmese ethnic group.[9] The Pyu script evolved into the modern Burmese script.

Imperial era

One of the smaller city states, Pagan, located on the Irrawaddy River, started growing in size and power due to its advantageous geographical location. By the Ninth Century it was the capital of a large kingdom, and by about 1044 it had conquered most of what is now considered Burma.[10] During this time, the Burmese intensified their cultural relations with India, and Theravada Buddhism became entrenched here over the course of centuries.

The Pagan rulers solidified their legitimacy by becoming lavish patrons of Buddhist practices and structures.[10] That originally worked well, but when problems came it meant that the state had to choose between spending money they didn't have or angering the citizenry. This caused the empire to decline and start to lose the loyalty of the various ethnic groups it had conquered. The last nail in the coffin came when it suffered invasions at the hands of the Mongols in the Thirteenth Century.

Beginning of European colonialism

The Burmese region was fragmented into a variety of states after the downfall of the Pagan Empire. Around 1510 or so, however, Burma rose again under the Toungoo dynasty. During the reign of Tabinshwehti, the Toungoo state became powerful enough to once again unify the Burmese region by conquering the neighboring ethnic groups.[11] It then got even bigger in the 1580s by conquering what is now Thailand and becoming the largest Southeast Asian empire.

Things weren't perfect, though, as Portugal started sending trade ships into the seas around Burma. In 1511, Portugal conquered the city of Malacca, placing much of Southeast Asian trade under its control. The Toungoo state suffered raids from both Portugal and other regional threats, losing control of most of its holdings and becoming a political irrelevancy again until about the early Eighteenth Century.[11]

Shortly after the Toungoo dynasty fell apart, the final Burmese dynasty rose to prominence to make one last go of it. The Konbaung dynasty under King Alaungpaya reconquered the Burmese region around the early 1800s. It became wealthy and powerful, establishing a great capital at the city of Mandalay and undergoing a cultural renaissance.[12] Unfortunately for them, the British East India Company had recently conquered much of the Bengal region of India and was seeking to expand its influence eastward. In 1824, Britain and Burma disagreed over where their border should be drawn. As is almost always the case in a British imperial border dispute, the redcoats declared war. What followed was the longest and costliest war in the history of British India; the high expenditures ended up ruining the British East India Company for decades afterwards and lost it the trust of the Crown.[13] The Burmese, meanwhile, lost the war and were forced to pay a large indemnity that crippled their entire economy.

In 1852 and 1883, the British fought less costly wars against a much weaker Burmese state, finally destroying its sovereignty and bringing it completely under control.[14]

British rule

Resistance among the various ethnic groups in the Burmese region continued for about 10 years after full British occupation, lasting until 1895.[15] Ultimately, the British proved to be better organized and equipped than the disunited resistance groups. That being said, the resistance did succeed in making administration of occupied Burma very difficult. Burmese partisans twice set fire to the city of Mandalay in 1886, destroying much of the city.[16] Resistance was so ubiquitous that the British Empire had to dispatch about 40,000 troops and colonial police into the region.[16] The British responded with typical colonialist brutality. They branded any resistance fighters they could find, and then they executed anyone they captured who already had a brand. These harsh tactics aided them in suppressing resistance, although at least one leader of a resistance cell, Bo Cho, eluded the conquerors until 1920.[16]

As in India, the British ruled according to the principle "never get something done by a European when an Oriental can do it."[17] Thus, the vast majority of administrators and officials in Burma were Burmese, although they did ultimately report to the British colonial overlords. In terms of economics, the British set about plundering Burma of its natural wealth, mostly rice, mining, and oil.[17] Wages for the indigenous stagnated and British colonial taxation increased while the natives' share of the profits for resource production declined. Peasants went bankrupt in droves, and by 1936 half of Burma's land was owned by British banks and businesses.[16] As a result of this poverty and breakdown in social order, crimes of desperation spiked.

World War II and the Burma Independence Army

See the main article on this topic: World War II

Worst of all, Burma became one of the largest ground battlefields in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Burma was one of Japan's prime targets in the war, firstly because the British were supplying China through Burma and secondly because Japan hoped to spark an anti-colonial uprising in India.[18] Japan thus invaded Burma through its ally Thailand in 1941, initially meeting with great success and forcing the British into a scorched-earth retreat.

Meanwhile, many of the Burmese decided that their fellow Asians were clearly fighting to liberate them from the white man, and some of them went so far as to ask the Japanese for military training. The first of the Burmese to do so were the "Thirty Comrades", led by a man named Thakin Aung San, and these men later formed the Burma Independence Army (BIA) to fight against the British.[19] The BIA was effective against the British, but it did suffer from ethnic divisions. The BIA was majority Burmese, so many of Burma's minority ethnic groups decided that they'd rather be oppressed by the British than go back to being oppressed by the Burmese again.[20] The BIA retaliated against non-cooperation by flattening villages.

As Japan came to occupy most of Burma, it became clear that the Japanese weren't any more interested in liberating Burma than the British were. Asian imperialists are still imperialists. Japanese military police started disappearing members of the BIA who seemed most likely to join a Burmese independence government, and Japanese forces stopped cooperating with the Burmese in military operations.[21] The Japanese also violently mistreated Burmese civilians, murdering about 250,000 people.[22] By 1944, Aung San had a change of heart, and he contacted the Allies to say that he would help them push the Japanese back out if the British would promise more autonomy for Burma.[23] The British reluctantly agreed, and the two sides cooperated until Japan's surrender in 1945.

Independence and early democracy

The first major event leading to Burma's independence actually came long before that event was a certainty. In 1937, the British decided that Burma was a separate colony from India, which is a bit like declaring that the United States is separate from Mexico. That decision was motivated by rising anger among Burmese nationalists, who didn't like that the British were allowing huge numbers of ethnic Indians to move into Burma and getting jobs that paid shitty wages.[24]

After the war and the UK's realization that the empire was unsustainable, the Brits decided to start working with the Burmese on transitioning to independence. Aung San became one of the foremost figures in the transitional government, although someone apparently took exception to his quasi-socialist ideals and assassinated him along with most of his advisors in 1947.[25] Six months later, the British Parliament passed the Burma Independence Act.[26]

So unpopular were the British in Burma that the newly-independent Burma refused to join the British Commonwealth of Nations. At first, things looked hopeful. Burma was relatively successful in rebuilding its economy, and it became one of Asia's wealthiest nations, with a good healthcare system and high literacy.[27] However, Burmese democracy was fragile, and ethnic tensions still ran high. Communists became powerful, especially after Mao Zedong won the Chinese Civil War. Ethnic uprisings also began after Aung San's death. Aung San had negotiated an agreement with the ethnic minorities promising to uphold their rights, but these agreements were disregarded after his assassination.[27]

While the Burmese military dealt violently with ethnic separatists, its corrupt leaders also took the opportunity to start increasing their influence in government. In 1958, they demanded the expulsion of all foreigners from Burmese soil, and by 1962 they were powerful enough to make a move for absolute power.[27]

Coup and consolidation

In 1962, Burma's delicate democracy came to an end when General Ne Win and his Revolutionary Council seized control of Burma by arresting most of its politicians and sending troops into the streets to make sure that no citizens intervened. Despite being described by the West as "bloodless", the coup actually saw multiple members of the old government murdered while the military quelled civilian dissent by shooting protesters and blowing up buildings in Rangoon University.[28] Thus became Burma's era of totalitarian military dictatorship.

After his takeover, General Ne Win started an economic program he called the "Burmese Way to Socialism".[29] This involved the nationalization of just about everything the government could get its grubby hands on, including tiny mom-and-pop retail shops. Despite a few good points like capping rent payments, his program had a disastrous effect on Burma's economy. The worst part came when the government decided that all of its investments should go to industry while leaving rice farmers to fend for themselves; industrialization went slowly and food prices skyrocketed.[30] Resource shortages became commonplace, and the people became miserable. Within a decade Burma went from relative prosperity to being one of the world's poorest countries.[31]

Warfare and brutality

Burma's ethnic civil war, meanwhile, got much worse due to Ne Win's brutal tactics. The Karen and Mon people rose up along the border with Thailand alongside one of Burma's former prime ministers, and China gave military aid to a Maoist party that they happened to like more than they liked Ne Win.[29] The cycle of rebellion and crackdown continued.

By 1988, things had gotten so bad both economically and politically that the people rose up in the "8888 Uprising." These protests were met with horrific violence, as soldiers murdered thousands of people in the streets and put many more in prison to be gruesomely tortured.[32] One of the most influential protest leaders was Aung San Suu Kyi, who was the daughter of Aung San.[33] Her leadership role and speeches during the movement turned her into a national hero and won her the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite the military's attempt to terrorize them, the protesters stayed out in the streets. Within a month, the old socialist regime collapsed under public pressure. It seemed like things were going to get better, but then the ambitious General Saw Maung seized power in another coup, put the whole country under martial law, and massacred as many as 10,000 people over the course of two weeks to break up the protests.[33]

Final years (of the first time around)

Protesters in Rangoon, 1988.

Even after protests were quelled, it was clear that something needed to change. In 1990, the military regime finally agreed to hold actual elections for Burma's legislature. The regime placed all of the opposition figureheads under house arrest, but didn't stop the opposition parties from campaigning and didn't make any successful attempt to stuff the ballot boxes. As a result, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party won over 58% of the popular vote and took the vast majority of the open legislative seats.[34] Despite that overwhelming mandate for Suu Kyi's leadership, the military junta refused to cede power on the basis that Suu Kyi had been arrested before and thus wasn't eligible to be president and then shot anybody who disagreed.[35] Things went on the same way.

Towards its final years, the regime did a few more things. In 1989, the military leaders renamed the country from Burma to Myanmar in order to appease nationalists by removing the old names used by colonial authorities.[3] In 2006, the government randomly relocated the capital from Yangon to some random town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, which they then renamed "Naypyidaw", meaning "seat of kings".[36] The generals celebrated that move by holding a giant goose-stepping parade and clapping each other on the back. Go team!

New boss, same as the old boss

“”There are falls from grace, and then there is Aung San Suu Kyi... The feted Nobel peace prize winner has become a global pariah at the head of a regime that has excused a genocide, jailed journalists and locked up critics, leaving the international community wringing its hands as Myanmar remains as repressive as ever.

—Hannah Ellis-Petersen, South-east Asia correspondent for The Guardian.[37]

Under heavy international pressure the military government finally started to institute some liberalization reforms to pave the way for democratic elections. In 2010, they finally released Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, they loosened press censorship in 2011, and they started releasing political prisoners in 2012.[38] In 2015, elections were held once more, and Aung San Suu Kyi's party predictably won a comfortable majority again. Suu Kyi was not able to become president, though, since two of her sons own foreign passports and this apparently disqualifies her.[39] Instead, Burma created the "State Counsellor" position, which made her head of government without technically admitting it.[40]

Suu Kyi's electoral victory was hailed by international observers as a turning point for Burma. Unfortunately, it really wasn't. About a year after Suu Kyi assumed office, the military began a violent ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims, which Suu Kyi denied and then ignored.[41] Her government also jailed journalists, persecuted critics, and thoroughly alienated international allies who had hoped Suu Kyi would be a force for good in Burma.[37] Bill Richardson, a US diplomat who worked closely with Suu Kyi for 25 years, turned against her and denounced her refusal to address the Rohingya genocide and her small-minded and authoritarian leadership style.[37]

The old boss back in the saddle

In February of 2021, the military just dropped the pretense of democracy and seized power outright in a coup. After Suu Kyi's democratic party won power in a landslide in the 2020 election,[42] the military declared the results to be a fraud and overthrew the government.[43] They then placed Suu Kyi under house arrest and charged her with various bogus crimes like "violating import and export laws" and "possessing unlawful communications devices."[43] She is now at risk of being tossed in jail for three years for improperly imported walkie-talkies, while President Win Myint is also facing charges of violating COVID-19 regulations.[44] All of this is an absurdity, but history proves that the guys with guns often get away with absurdities.

Burma will have to endure another year of martial law. The military's long-term plans are currently unknown. The last election had a 70% turnout overwhelmingly for Suu Kyi, and the Burmese public is already showing signs that it's pretty pissed off with what happened.[45] Suu Kyi is also unlikely to cooperate with any of the military's plans. The coup was a reckless action that risks an even greater disaster.

Burma's election commission rather boldly denounced and rejected the military's claim that fraud decided the 2020 election.[46] In response to public outrage, the military shut down Facebook access for all of Burma.[47] Because that'll fix everything right up.

Ethnic groups in Burma

Bamar/Burmese

The Bamar, also known as the Burmese, are the dominant ethnic group in Burma. Their Burmese language is the nation's only official language.[48] They are mostly concentrated in the Irrawaddy River region and in the central regions surrounding Mandalay. Mainstream culture in Burma is also dominated by the traditions and expectations of the Burmese, and their traditional emphasis on the importance of social hierarchies has translated into a system whereby Burma's ethnic minorities are oppressed and denied opportunity.[49] These power differences were exacerbated during the period of British rule, as the British preferred to work with the wealthier and more literate Burmese groups.

Karenni

The Karenni are a group of Sino-Tibetan people who are largely concentrated in the Kayah State and currently number about 250,000.[50] The Karenni have historically maintained a large degree of independence from the Burmese and were thus considered by the British as a separate entity.[50] As a result of this history and their cultural distinctiveness, the Karenni were one of the most anti-integration ethnic groups, and they've been oppressed and at war ever since. Even after cease-fires in 1995, 2002, 2012, and now 2015, the Karenni are still occasionally attacked by the military and they are consistently denied access to economic opportunity.[50]

Kachin

The Kachin are thought to have migrated into Burma from southern China, and they largely inhabit the Kachin State. Like the Karenni, the Kachin have historically been independent from Burmese rulers. Although the Kachin didn't make too much trouble early in Burma's independent period, the post-1962 military dictatorship made enemies of the Kachin by discriminating against them and attacking them.[51]

The Kachin are also notable for being between two-thirds and 90% Christian, which has pitted them against the Burmese state, which declares Buddhism as its state religion.[51] They were converted during the era of British rule.

Chin

Like the Kachin, the Chin are also majority Christian. They've long been isolated due to the fact that they mostly live in the rugged mountains of the Chin state in western Burma.[52] The Chin originally kept to themselves for the most part until the general country-wide crackdown after the 1988 protests. The military started forcing the Chin out of their homes, destroying their villages and churches, and forcing them into slave labor.[52] The forced labor is particularly cruel as it takes farmers away from their fields, leaving residents unable to afford food, healthcare or education. Chin who go bankrupt are then legally obliged to take out loans, incurring personal debt to pay for basic services.

Mon

The Mon, mostly concentrated in the Mon State, are closely related to their neighbors in Thailand and Laos.[53] The Mon originally had their own kingdoms, but they were gradually overtaken by the Burmese empires. Although majority Theravada Buddhist like the Burmese, the Mon were still excluded from regional representation early on, and they were one of the first groups to rise against the government in armed insurgency.[53] Although open warfare has ceased after a cease-fire in 2012, arbitrary land confiscation by the government continues and the courts largely ignore Mon rights.

Shan

The Shan people live in their namesake state, and they combine their Buddhist practices with elements of animism.[54] The Shan are also thought to have migrated from southern China. Other than that, it was basically the same old story. The Shan were excluded from government and abused, so they rose up and were met with a face-full of war crimes. Fighting continues as the military broke a two-decade peace in 2011 to clear them away from planned national-level construction projects, and violence is still ongoing and more than 100,000 people have been displaced.[54]

Rohingya

Burma also has a fairly significant Muslim minority, most of whom live in the Rakhine State. They tend to follow Sunni Islam and refer to themselves as "Rohingya."[55] Despite that uniform title, the Rohingya aren't exactly homogeneous. They seem to be split between the people who were converted by trade with the Abbasid Caliphate and Muslims who immigrated to Burma more recently during the period of British rule. The Burmese blanketly consider all Rohingya to be the latter variety, and they continually deny them citizenship and consider them foreigners.[55] Due to the lack of citizenship and ubiquitous discrimination, it's almost impossible for Rohingya to get higher education, get healthcare, or even get married.[55] The Rohingya also face genocide and attacks by the military which began around 2017.

Rohingya genocide

Starting around 2017, the Burmese military has launched an extremely violent crackdown against Rohingya Muslim citizens of the Rakhine state. As early as 2018, foreign investigators started finding mass graves with horrifying contents; many thousands of bodies had been blasted with bullets or dunked in acid.[56] The United Nations also uncovered evidence of mass murder, burning villages, and even sprees of gang-rapes.[57][58] The UN described the pace of ethnic cleansing as "frenzied."

The country's head of government, the former human rights crusader-turned-villain Aung San Suu Kyi hasn't said or done anything to prevent the violence. This seems to have been inevitable, since recollections of her close former allies concerning her personal Islamaphobia have become much more relevant. Her anti-Muslim bias had been ingrained within her due to her status as an elite Burmese woman who benefited from the same racial hierarchies that led to hatred against the Muslims, and as early as 2013 she had been stoking fears of "global Muslim power" and Islamic terrorism in Burma.[59]

The end result is that Rohingya have fled from Burma in waves, creating the worst refugee crisis since the Vietnam War.[60] Most have fled to Bangladesh. Meanwhile, investigators from the UN Human Rights Council have called for the prosecution of Burmese generals on genocide charges for crimes including gang rape, the torching of hundreds of villages, enslavement, and killings of children.[61]

Gallery

External links

• That South East Asian Country.

References

1. Opinion: Israel’s Shameful Role in Myanmar’s Genocidal Campaign Against the Rohingya. Haaretz.
2. See the Wikipedia article on Names of Myanmar.
3. What’s in a Name: Burma or Myanmar? US Institute of Peace.
4. Should it be Burma or Myanmar? BBC News.
5. What’s in a name? Not much, according to Aung San Suu Kyi, who tells diplomats they can use Myanmar or Burma. South China Morning Post.
6. Bowman, John Stewart Bowman (2013). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. Columbia University Press. p. 476. ISBN 978-0-231-50004-3.
7. Myint-U, Thant (2006). The River of Lost Footsteps—Histories of Burma. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6. p. 37
8. Hall, D.G.E. (1960). Burma (3rd ed.). Hutchinson University Library. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-1-4067-3503-1.
9. See the Wikipedia article on Pyu city-states.
10. The kingdom of Pagan (849–c. 1300). Britannica.
11. The Toungoo dynasty, 1531–1752. Britannica.
12. Myanmar 101: Ancient kings and lost empires. Frontier Myanmar.
13. Webster, Anthony (1998). Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in South East Asia, 1770-1890. I.B.Tauris. pp. 142–145. ISBN 978-1-86064-171-8.
14. See the Wikipedia article on Anglo-Burmese Wars.
15. See the Wikipedia article on Burmese resistance movement 1885–95.
16. Burma Colony. British Empire.
17. The British Empire in Burma. Orwell Foundation.
18. The Burma Campaign 1941 - 1945. BBC.
19. See the Wikipedia article on Thirty Comrades.
20. Smith, Martin (1991). Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. Zed Books. ISBN 978-0862328696.
21. Bayly, Christopher; Tim Harper (2005). Forgotten Armies. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-029331-0. p.172
22. Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. 2nd Ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. p. 556
23. See the Wikipedia article on Burma Independence Army.
24. When Burma and India went their separate ways. Frontier Myanmar.
25. Author Discusses Martyrs’ Day Assassination of Aung San. The Irrawaddy.
26. See the Wikipedia article on Burma Independence Act 1947.
27. Independence, Aung San, and Burma after World War II. Facts and Details.
28. Boudreau, Vincent (2004) Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and Protest in Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., pp. 37-39, 50-51, ISBN 0-521-83989-0
29. Ne Win Years in Burma. Facts and Details.
30. Ne Win Military Rule - A Nationalized Economy. Global Security.
31. The Burma road to ruin. The Guardian.
32. How a Failed Democracy Uprising Set the Stage for Myanmar's Future. Time Magazine.
33. The 8888 Uprising in Myanmar (Burma). ThoughtCo.
34. See the Wikipedia article on 1990 Myanmar general election.
35. Burma's leaders annul Suu Kyi's 1990 poll win. BBC News.
36. Burma's new capital stages parade. BBC News.
37. From peace icon to pariah: Aung San Suu Kyi's fall from grace. The Guardian.
38. See the Wikipedia article on 2011–2015 Myanmar political reforms.
39. Myanmar's 2015 landmark elections explained. BBC News.
40. See the Wikipedia article on State Counsellor of Myanmar.
41. Myanmar Rohingya: What you need to know about the crisis. BBC News.
42. See the Wikipedia article on 2020 Myanmar general election.
43. Myanmar coup: What is happening and why? BBC News.
44. Myanmar’s military is using absurd legal charges to keep leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked up. Vox.
45. Myanmar coup: Aung San Suu Kyi detained as military seizes control. BBC News.
46. Myanmar election commission rejects military’s fraud claims. Associated Press.
47. Myanmar coup: Military blocks Facebook for sake of 'stability'. BBC News.
48. See the Wikipedia article on Bamar people.
49. Myanmar (Burmese) Culture. Cultural Atlas.
50. Karenni. Minority Rights Group International.
51. Kachin. Minority Rights Group International.
52. Chin. Minority Rights Group International.
53. Mon. Minority Rights Group International.
54. Shan. Minority Rights Group International.
55. Muslims and Rohingya. Minority Rights Group International.
56. AP finds mass graves, latest evidence of Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. CBS News.
57. ‘No other conclusion,’ ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas in Myanmar continues – senior UN rights official. UN News.
58. Government dismisses claims of abuse against Rohingya. Al Jazeera.
59. The West turned Aung San Suu Kyi into a saint. She was always going to disappoint. CNN.
60. Myanmar attacks, sea voyage rob young father of everything. Associated Press.
61. Investigators call for genocide prosecutions over slaughter of Rohingyas. CBS News.

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