18 Brooten, McElhone and Venkiteswaran General Aung San and a popular film on the Karen conflict, the country’s longest-running civil war (Aung Min 2012). During the Cold War, both the United States and Russia engaged in a propaganda war. They poured financial aid into Burma to support the publication of their views and to gain the support of the Burmese. A large influx of U.S. money supported the publication of books on U.S. culture and the dangers of the Russian empire, but it also promoted corruption in the publishing industry (U Thaung 1995). In the ongoing propaganda war, Russia and China also flooded the market with publications, which divided Burmese political forces and the literary field into pro-U.S. and pro-Russian camps (U Thaung 1995). After only a few years of civilian rule, a 1962 coup d’état brought General Ne Win to power. Several name changes and shuffles in personnel notwithstanding, the military retained control of the country for the next half-century. Military Rule and Censorship: 1962–2010 This period in Burma’s history was characterized by strict censorship of all media, including the visual arts and live performances. After seizing power in 1962, General Ne Win targeted the press, imprisoning newspaper editors and establishing two state-run newspapers: Working People’s Daily and Forward Weekly (Smith 1991). He also created the Burma Press Council to promote press freedom through the voluntary observance of a state-imposed code of ethics, revoked all existing press laws, and enacted a new instrument of censorship, the Printers and Publishers Registration Law of 1962. For the first year, General Ne Win allowed private weekly and monthly journals to publish without incident, but in 1964 he nationalized all private publications and arrested editors and journalists, decimating the country’s previously vibrant private press (Allott 1993; Lintner 2001). Private newspapers were banned altogether in 1966 (Lintner 2001). Political cartooning also disappeared as a result (Leehey 1997). Those publications that remained became mouthpieces of Ne Win’s Burmese Socialist Program Party (BSPP), political content was forbidden, and cartoons were limited to less sensitive topics such as nutrition and agriculture (Allott 1994; Leehey 1997; Smith 1991). 01 ch1-MyanmarMediaIT-5P.indd 18 8/4/19 10:29 am