Jehovah’s Witnesses have been present since 1914 and have about 80 congregations around the country and a branch office in Yangon publishing in 16 languages.A tiny Jewish community in Yangon had a synagogue but no resident rabbi to conduct services. A large majority of the population practices Buddhism; estimates range from 80% to 89%. According to 2014 Myanmar Census, 87.9% of the population identifies as Buddhists. There are some 500,000 Buddhist monks and 75,000 nuns in this country of 54 million. Other religions are practised largely without obstruction, with the notable exception of some religious minorities such as the Rohingya people, who have continued to have their citizenship status denied and treated as illegal immigrants instead, and Christians in Chin State. Many U.S. and European jewellery companies, including Bulgari, Tiffany and Cartier, refuse to import these stones based on reports of deplorable working conditions in the mines.
Forests, including dense tropical growth and valuable teak in lower Myanmar, cover over 49% of the country, including areas of acacia, bamboo, ironwood and Magnolia champaca. In the highlands of the north, oak, pine and various rhododendrons cover much of the land. Myanmar is bordered in the northwest by the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh and the Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh states of India. Its north and northeast border is with the Tibet Autonomous Region and Yunnan for a Sino-Myanmar border total of 2,185 km .
Nevertheless, much of the country is off-limits to tourists, and interactions between foreigners and the people of Myanmar, particularly in the border regions, are subject to police scrutiny. They are not to discuss politics with foreigners, under penalty of imprisonment and, in 2001, the Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board issued an order for local officials to protect tourists and limit “unnecessary contact” between foreigners and ordinary Burmese people.
The resounding victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in the 2015 general election raised hope for a successful culmination of this transition. By the second day of the coup, thousands of protesters were marching in the streets of the nation’s largest city, and commercial capital, Yangon, and other protests erupted nationwide, largely halting commerce and transportation. Despite the military’s arrests and killings of protesters, the first weeks of the coup found growing public participation, including groups of civil servants, teachers, students, workers, monks and religious leaders – even normally disaffected ethnic minorities. The military announced it would replace the current election commission with a new one, and a military media outlet indicated new elections would be held in about one year – though the military avoided making an official commitment to that. The goal of the Burmese constitutional referendum of 2008, held on 10 May 2008, is the creation of a “discipline-flourishing democracy”.
On 2 March 1962, the military led by General Ne Win took control of Burma through a coup d’état, and the government had been under direct or indirect control by the military since then. Between 1962 and 1974, Myanmar was ruled by a revolutionary council headed by the general. Almost all aspects of society were nationalised or brought under government control under the Burmese Way to Socialism, which combined Soviet-style nationalisation and central planning. When the non-Burman ethnic groups pushed for autonomy or federalism, alongside forex analytics having a weak civilian government at the centre, the military leadership staged a coup d’état in 1962. Though incorporated in the 1947 Constitution, successive military governments construed the use of the term ‘federalism’ as being anti-national, anti-unity and pro-disintegration. On 4 January 1948, the nation became an independent republic, under the terms of the Burma Independence Act 1947. The new country was named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first president and U Nu as its first prime minister.
Elections And 2021 Military Coup D’état
In May 1990, the government held free multiparty elections for the first time in almost 30 years, and the National League for Democracy , the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won earning 392 out of a total 492 seats (i.e., 80% of the seats). However, the military junta refused to cede power and continued to rule the nation as SLORC until 1997, and then as the State Peace and Development Council until its dissolution in March 2011. On 23 June 1997, Myanmar was admitted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Human Rights Watch has encouraged a complete ban on the purchase of Burmese gems based on these reports and because nearly all profits go to the ruling junta, as the majority of mining activity in the country is government-run. The government of Myanmar controls the gem trade by direct ownership or by joint ventures with private owners of mines.
In a speech at Chatham House, he revealed that “We are reviewing all cases. I guarantee to you that by the end of this year, there will be no prisoners of conscience in Myanmar.”, in addition to expressing a desire to strengthen links between the UK and Myanmar’s military forces. The U.S. threatened sanctions on the military and its leaders, including a “freeze” of US$1 billion of their assets in the U.S. trader State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were placed under house arrest, and the military began filing various charges against them. The military expelled NLD party Members of Parliament from the capital city, Naypyitaw. By 15 March 2021 the military leadership continued to extend martial law into more parts of Yangon, while security forces killed 38 people in a single day of violence.
British Burma (1885
Among the Burmese to work at the UN when he was secretary-general was Aung San Suu Kyi , who went on to become winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1826, Burma lost Arakan, Manipur, Assam and Tenasserim to the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War. In 1852, the British easily seized Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War.
Until 2005, the United Nations General Assembly annually adopted a detailed resolution about the situation in Myanmar by consensus. But in 2006 a divided United Nations General Assembly voted through a resolution that strongly called upon the government of Myanmar to end its systematic violations of human rights. In January 2007, Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council calling on the government of Myanmar to respect human rights and begin a democratic transition.
However, election observers declared there were no major irregularities in the voting. Throughout the colonial era, many Indians arrived as soldiers, civil servants, construction workers and traders and, along with the Anglo-Burmese community, dominated commercial and civil life in Burma. Rangoon became the capital of British Burma and an important port between Calcutta and Singapore. Burmese resentment was strong, and was vented in violent riots that paralysed Rangoon on occasion until the 1930s. Some of the discontent was caused by a disrespect for Burmese culture and traditions such as the British refusal to remove shoes when they entered pagodas.
Military
The Pagan Kingdom fell to Mongol invasions, and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo dynasty, the country became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a short period. The early 19th-century Konbaung dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British East India Company seized control of the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. After a brief Japanese occupation, Myanmar was reconquered by the Allies and granted independence in 1948. Following a coup d’état in 1962, it became a military dictatorship under the Burma Socialist Programme Party.
- The education system is based on the United Kingdom’s system after nearly a century of British and Christian presences in Myanmar.
- The under 5 mortality rate, per 1,000 births is 73 and the neonatal mortality as a percentage of under 5’s mortality is 47.
- There has been a significant decline in fertility in the 2000s, from a rate of 4.7 children per woman in 1983, down to 2.4 in 2001, despite the absence of any national population policy.
- Civil wars have been a constant feature of Myanmar’s socio-political landscape since the attainment of independence in 1948.
- The Anglo-Burmese at this time either fled the country or changed their names and blended in with the broader Burmese society.
- Burma and Siam went to war until 1855, but all resulted in a stalemate, exchanging Tenasserim and Lan Na .
The name of the country has been a matter of dispute and disagreement, particularly in the early 21st century, focusing mainly on the political legitimacy of those using Myanmar versus Burma. Both names derive from the earlier Burmese Myanma or Myamma, an ethnonym for the majority Bamar ethnic group, of uncertain etymology. The terms are also popularly thought to derive from Brahma Desha or ब्रह्मादेश/ब्रह्मावर्त the commitments of traders bible after Brahma. WASHINGTON – Burma democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be honored in Washington this week and presented Congress’s highest award, the latest milestone in her remarkable journey from political prisoner to globe-trotting stateswoman. Myanmar’s first film was a documentary of the funeral of Tun Shein—a leading politician of the 1910s, who campaigned for Burmese independence in London.
General Elections
In Myanmar’s 2020 parliamentary election, the ostensibly ruling National League for Democracy , the party of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, competed with various other smaller parties – particularly the military-affiliated Union eur Solidarity and Development Party . Other parties and individuals allied with specific ethnic minorities also ran for office. According to some reports, the military’s presence continues as the label “disciplined democracy” suggests.
The military junta had informed the IAEA in September 2000 of its intention to construct the reactor. In 2010 as part of the Wikileaks leaked cables, Myanmar was suspected of using North Korean construction teams to build a fortified surface-to-air missile facility.
Political Culture
The government issues strict rules on censorship and largely determines who produces films, as well as who gets academy awards. Internet use is estimated to be relatively low compared to other countries. Myanmar’s internet used to be subject to censorship, and authorities viewed e-mails and posts on Internet blogs until 2012 when the government removed media censorship.