Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
As many as 250,000 people of Indian and Chinese descent left Burma in the 1960s.
Anti-Chinese riots in Yangon in 1967 also resulted in hundreds of Chinese deaths.
The Junta Years: 1962-2010
The Burmese Road to Socialism
Free elections were held in December 1960 and the charismatic U Nu regained power
with a much-improved majority, partly through a policy of making Buddhism the state
religion. This, and politically destabilising moves by various ethnic minorities to leave
the Union of Burma, resulted in an army coup in March 1962.
U Nu, along with his main ministers, was thrown into prison, where he remained until
he was forced into exile in 1966. Ne Win established a 17-member Revolutionary Coun-
cil and announced that the country would 'march towards socialism in our own Burmese
way', confiscating most private property and handing it over to military-run state corpor-
ations.
Nationalisation resulted in everyday commodities becoming available only on the
black market, and vast numbers of people being thrown out of work. Ne Win also banned
international aid organisations, foreign-language publications and local, privately owned
newspapers and political parties. The net result was that by 1967, a country that had been
the largest exporter of rice in the world prior to WWII was now unable to feed itself.
Patricia Elliott's The White Umbrella ( www.whiteumbrella.com ) is the fascinating true
story of Shan royal Sao Hearn Hkam, wife of Burma's president and founder of the Shan
State Army.
Riots & Street Protests
Opposition to Ne Win's government eventually bubbled over into a strike by oil workers
and others in May 1974 and, later that same year, riots over what was seen as the inap-
propriate burial of former UN secretary-general U Thant in Yangon. Responding with
gunfire and arrests, the government regained control and doggedly continued to run the
country - further impoverishing the people with successive demonetisations.
In late 1981 Ne Win retired as president of the republic, retaining his position as chair
of the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the country's only legal political
party under the 1974 constitution. But his successor, San Yu, and the government re-
mained very much under the influence of Ne Win's political will.
 
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