MYANMAR (BURMA) 1 (Complete 240407) Introduction In November 2005 the residents of Burma’s capital Rangoon (Yangon) awoke to discover the military junta, led since 1992 by General Than Shwe, had moved the entire central government apparatus to the isolated mountainous region of Pyinmana in the centre of the country. As the Financial Times, 1 December 2005, suggested, this seemed a strange way to bring greater contact with remote parts of the country and ‘upgrading the country’s weak transport links and communications networks would probably be far less expensive as well as more beneficial to the economy in the long run.’ From the outset, the new political capital did not even have facsimile communications, but uniting the country militarily and combating regional separatism or even federalism is the driving ideology of the junta. Union of Burma The Union of Burma created in 1948 was an effort to unify the many regional ethnic groups into a nation-state.2 The elected government of U Nu 3 was overthrown in a bloodless military coup in 1962 by army chief General Ne Win who opposed the idea of a federalist constitution which he feared would lead to the break up of the Union.4 The issue is compounded by the fact that Burman ruling families and cliques have dominated the subsequent military junta. In 1989 Burma was renamed Myanmar. The ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’ Assuming dictatorial power, General Ne Win installed himself as chair of a 24member Revolutionary Council and expanded the role of the military in politics, bureaucratic administration and the economy. The junta formed the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) as a means of mass mobilization and political indoctrination, while all other political parties were banned, eliminating institutional rivals to the Revolutionary Council. An autarkic and xenophobic economic policy was pursued, the disastrous ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’, bringing to a grinding halt the growth of an independent civil society based upon the private sector. Nationalization of businesses and property during the 1960s resulted in the departure of much of the Indian and Chinese entrepreneurial class and destroyed the emerging Burmese middle class. A non-aligned isolationist policy of ‘disengagement’ further insulated the country from direct political influence by foreign powers. The result has been that Burma changed from being one of Asia’s most prosperous and growing economies to a less developed country called Myanmar. 1 ‘Myanmar’ is used by international organizations, but the decision to rename the country ‘was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw.’ (CIA Factbook) 2 Ethnic diversity is as follows: Burmans (valley dwellers) 68 per cent of the population, Shan (borders with China, Laos and Thailand) 9 per cent, Karen (border with Thailand) 7 per cent, Rakhine (borders with Bangladesh and India) 4 per cent, Chinese 3 per cent; Indians 2 per cent; Mon, 2 per cent, Others, for example, the Chin, the Karenni and the Wa, 5 per cent, each with diverse local economies, from rice paddy and agriculture to fishing, hunting and gathering, from urban living to remote jungle villages. 3 U Nu had assumed leadership of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) following the assassination of General Aung San, father of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. 4 Other reasons for the military's assertion of control over the state were a perceived turning away from the state's founding socialist principles and U Nu's policy of establishing Buddhism as the state religion. (Schock, 1999.)