Burma, since 1989 renamed by the junta to "Myanmar", is situated in Southeast Asia between India, China and Thailand. Since the coup in 1962 a military regime is ruling in Burma under different names a state models. In 1988, thousands of Burmese had to pay with their lives for demanding democracy and economic reforms. In 2007, monks and their supporters were shot and bludgeoned off the streets. Again the year 2008 brought Burma into the headlines when Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta and took the lives of many tens of thousands. The world was shocked to see that the regime long time refused to let foreign aid into the country.
Most of the problems, however, are invisible to tourists and people who stay in the central areas of Burma. Even Burmese are usually totally unaware of what is happening in other parts of their country, since Internet is available to only less than 1% of the population and media is strictly censored.
Some of the problems that the regime is responsible for:
- Burma's army is using rape as a weapon of war.
- Burma has over 1,200 political prisoners - some were imprisoned for not more than providing help to the victims of Nargis.
- Torture is routine in prison and custody.
- widespread use of forced labor and child labor
- war on ethnic minorities - over half a million Internally Displaced Persons try to survive in the jungles
- With 70,000 Burma has the world's biggest amount of child soldiers.
- Nearly half of the state budget is spent on the military and only few percent on health and education.
- media censorship
Burmese in exile, a network of advocacy organizations and many supporters try for decades to effect a change, some on a confrontational way, others by engagement. But the regime enjoys strong protection by its neighboring governments who make use of Burma's energy resources and its strategic location while their own population usually are entirely uninformed about the suffering of the people of Burma.
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