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Story Publication logo January 31, 2008

Back in Time in Burma

Country:

Myanmar (burma)
Author:
1
English

Project

Terror in the Golden Land

Repressed and mismanaged by a cadre of generals since 1962, Burma erupted last September in the...

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The buildings of Rangoon, Burma's commercial capital, are crumbling from neglect. The pavement is upturned, the streets potholed and electricity available for only a few hours a day.
A truck transports old-growth teak logs from northern Burma to a dock in eastern Rangoon. Every night scores of timber trucks transport logs — some of them as wide as the hood of a car — from Mandalay to Rangoon, where they are exported to neighboring countries.
A pre-WWII bus ferries passengers to work. Fuel hikes last September led to country-wide protests when people couldn't afford to get to work. The government has since lowered fuel prices, but its frugal daily rations mean many drivers have to buy fuel from the black market to make a living.
People still live in fear of the police who continue to arrest people suspected of participating in last September's uprisings which killed at least 31 people, with many others missing.
Every day at dawn, monks walk the streets on alms round. Townspeople say there are fewer monks than before, as many fled back to their home villages after the government crackdown on September's protests. In deeply religious Burma, monks depend on the ability of the laypeople to provide for them.
Billboards declaring the interests of the people are splashed across Rangoon and Mandalay, in English and Burmese. One of them is to 'Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy.'
A group of artists struggles to express their daily realities, despite the danger. Poets, musicians and painters are often imprisoned if they criticize the government. Every publically displayed painting must first pass the scrutiny of the Ministry of Information's Censorship Board.
A stupa in the Shwe Dagon temple complex in Rangoon. Burma was horrified when soldiers turned their weapons on monks during last September's uprisings. It's not over, says one journalist.
The Moustache Brothers, a traditional comedy troupe in Mandalay, gives nightly performances to tourists that poke fun at the government. Their leader, U Par Par Lay, has been arrested three times for his incendiary jokes, most recently after September's protests. The group is banned from performing for Burmese audiences.
A specialized doctor in Burma lives on $2.40 a day, a teacher gets $1.30 and the old and family-less are forced onto the streets to beg. While the country's resources earn profits for the ruling generals and their friends, the rest of Burma is left to scrounge for the scraps that remain.

During its 46-year rule, Burma's military government has turned one of the wealthiest countries of Southeast Asia into one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world.

The damages are evident everywhere; pre-WWII commuter buses growl through the cities and grinding poverty forces beggars and prostitutes to ply the streets beneath Orwellian billboards.

Meanwhile the government exports teak, gas and gemstones for its own profit. Dissent is not tolerated, as the world saw in September's Saffron Revolution. But underneath the veneer, Burma is again close to the boiling point.

Photographs taken by Jacob Baynham from Dec. 29, 2007 to Jan. 30, 2008.

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