Myanmar

MYANMAR, FORMERLY CALLED Burma/Birma, forges links between south and southeast Asia, bordering Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. After riots in 1988, the military junta changed the country's name, explaining that “Myanmar” would include all the different groups of the population. This change of name highlights one of the country's many problems: Myanmar is a multiracial state with many ethnicities, mostly very different in history, culture, religion, and language. Following an ethnolinguistic classification, three main groups of people live in Myanmar: Sino-Tibetan dialect-speaking groups (Burmese, Kachin, Chin, Lahu, Naga, and some others), Mon-Khmer (Mon, Wa, Palaung), and Austro-Thai (Shan).

There are no exact numbers available for today's population situation, but it is very probable that the Burmese are the majority (estimated as 49.9 million in 2004). The Burmese and some other ethnicities (Mon, Shan) are Buddhists. Not only with regard to population but quite generally, it is extremely difficult to get reliable information about the still not democratically ruled country, in which human rights are severely violated. The government did not accept the result of the first democratic vote in 1990 (after 30 years), which was won by the National League for Democracy (whose leader is Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991).

The military junta has maintained its hold on power, many political opponents were taken into custody (Aung San Suu Kyi, too), and the Muslim minority was persecuted, so that in 1991 about 250,000 fled to Bangladesh. This situation contributes to Myanmar's poverty profile, although the country has mineral resources and is arable in many areas. It is potentially one of the richest countries in southeast Asia. Another important [Page 736]reason for the country's poverty is the attempt to establish some kind of socialist economic system during the time of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1974–88). This system was inefficient and collapsed because it was managed by unskilled and corrupt military rulers, and also because of the severe economic crisis of the Third World in the 1980s caused by falling raw material prices, decreasing proceeds from exports, and increasing debts.

Fortunately the various ethnicities living in Myanmar were experienced in creating a network of activities that helped to cushion the economic fall; all over the country an efficient black-market system was developed that grew to such an extent and vital importance that the military government had to tolerate it. The black market helped to satisfy the basic needs of the population.

This black market was partly democratized; it functioned in different ways, such as small community markets and door-to-door selling. In the context of the black-market network, which made available more or less everything, the distribution of Thai and Chinese contraband products from the border areas played an important role. The economic crisis was so severe that it became inevitable to slightly open the country (or at least the economy) to the world in order to make desperately needed foreign aid possible.

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