|
|
 |
Information on Burma
Information on Burma
Burma Center Prague o.p.s.
-
Information on Burma
Burma (Myanmar) - the original official name “Union of Burma”, since 1989 “Union of Myanmar” - is situated in South-east Asia. From north to south Tibeto-Himalayan Mountains are stretching, in the south-west and south Burma borders the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The neighbouring countries in the west are Bangladesh and India, in the north and north-east China and Laos, and in the east Thailand. Burma's capital has been recently moved from Rangoon (Yangon) to Pyinmana, a small town 400 km north of Rangoon on the railway line to Mandalay.
Burma is the second largest state in Southeast Asia, its area being 678,033 km2, that is 5 times the size of the Czech and Slovak Republics together.
Burma is divided into 7 divisions of Burma Proper and 7 states of the national minorities – Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Chin, Mon, Arakan and Shan States.
The population of Burma amounts to almost 50 million, the largest ethnic group being the Burmese, comprising 68% of population. The prevailing religion is Buddhism, the official language is Burmese.
Since 3,000 B.C. groups of Mon-Khmer, Tibeto-Burmans and Sino-Thai population began to move to the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. The Mons came to Lower Burma in the 5th and 6th century A.D., founding Thaton and Pegu. Before that the Pyu (of Tibeto-Burmese origin) who came in the 3rd and 4th century A.D. – founded Sriksetra. Since the 8th – 9th century A.D. the Burmese came to central Burma and founded Pagan, which in the 11th – 13th century became the capital of the first Burmese state, where Buddhist culture flourished and where lots of pagodas were built, many of them preserved until today.
 |
Fisherman on Inle Lake, Shan State |
From the 13th to the 18th century Shans from the Sino-Thai group began to penetrate into Burma, founding centres like Ava and Toungoo.
The Konbaung Dynasty (1752 – 1885) was the last period of the independent Burmese kingdom. In the 19th century the British started to penetrate into Burma and gradually, in the 2 Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824 – 1826, 1851 – 1852) conquered the southern parts of Burma. In the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 they conquered the royal city of Mandalay, dethroned the last King Thibaw and took him to exile in India.
In the colonial era (1885 – 1941) Burma became a province of British India and it was only in 1937 that it was separated from that country. During the colonial period various opposition forms and resistance against British colonial rule appeared. In 1920 it was the strike of students at the Rangoon University, in 1930 – 32 the peasant rebellion of Saya San. In 1930 the Dobama (“We Burmese”) organization was formed and in 1938 there was the strike of oil workers in Yenangyaung.
During the Second World War the group of “Thirty Comrades”, headed by Aung San prepared for fight in Japan and in December 1941 the Army of Independent Burma was formed in Thailand. During the war Burma was occupied by the Japanese who proclaimed formal “independence” of Burma on 1 August 1943. The Burmese army was re-named Burma National Army. But soon anti-Japanese resistance and national liberation movement against the Japanese was formed. In August 1944 the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) was established, which secretly came to agreement on military co-operation with the British against the Japanese. On 27 March 1945 the Burmese National Army together with the AFPFL started the armed uprising against the Japanese. On 1 May 1945, Rangoon was liberated and the organs of the League were taking power while in the areas under the control of Allied Forces the British started to establish the army authorities.
On 10 November 1946 the AFPFL issued the demand for independence. The British government was forced to negotiate and on 27 January 1947 the “Aung San – Attlee Agreement” giving Burma the right for independence, was signed in London. In February 1947 an important conference took place in Panglong in Burma where the Burmese reached agreement with national minorities on forming a federal state, where national minorities would have the right for inner autonomy. In April 1947 elections to the Constitutional Assembly took place and on 4 January 1948 the independent Union of Burma was proclaimed. General-Major Aung San, the “Father of Independence” could not, however, be its first leader, because on 19 July 1947 he was, together with six other members of the governor’s council, assassinated. U Nu, the leader of the AFPFL, became the first Prime Minister.
 |
Water Festival |
Since the very beginning the Union of Burma was troubled by civil war. It was started by the armed struggle of the two Communist Parties (the extremist Red Flag and the White Flag Communist Party) and various organizations and armed groups of the national minorities who wanted more rights. This situation led the Burmese army, under the leadership of General Ne Win, to the take-over of power in 1958 – 1960. After the short period of U Nu´s government (1960 – 62) Ne Win headed the military coup d´ état in 1962. Since that time the military junta has been holding power. It founded the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) which proclaimed the “Burmese Way to Socialism”. The Party ideology was a mixture of socialism, Buddhism and isolationism. Junta continued fighting in the civil war and severely suppressed all opposition. Up to the end of the 1980s socialist countries co-operated with the junta, in the 1960s and 1970s the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was active too.
By the end of 1980s the economic situation of the country got worse. Burma, once a “rice-bowl” of Asia, despite of its great wealth of natural resources – wood, coal, oil, gas, tin, wolfram, lead, zinc, silver, copper, nickel, rubies, sapphires, emeralds – became one of the poorest countries of the world. The result of the socialist economic policy was the growth of the black market and total shortage of all kinds of goods.
Due to the worsening of the economic and political situation a broad pro-democracy movement developed in 1988. Its leader became the daughter of General-Major Aung San, the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi, who founded the National League for Democracy (NLD). In summer 1988 demonstrations took place and on 8.8.1988 the movement for democracy was brutally suppressed in a scene of bloodshed in Rangoon.
However, circumstances forced the government to admit democratic parliamentary elections in May 1990. The National League for Democracy gained over 80% of votes. Despite that the military junta never allowed the parliament to be called to take over the power. Instead, it arrested and jailed the leading members of NLD and the leader Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest where she is, with short breaks, until today.
In 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her effort to introduce democracy to her country.
Burma Center Prague o.p.s.
-
www.burma-center.org
Who we are
Kdo jsme
