Democracy or democrazy?

It all started in 1988 when the people of Burma marched, demonstrated and protested against the government. The uprising was caused partly by the government, which had closed universities in Burma. There were around 3000 deaths and unknown numbers of injured. During that time Aung San Suu Kyi became an icon and Burma gained worldwide media attention. State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) - that later became State Peace and Development Council - stated in their Declaration No. 1 among other things that the military would not "cling to power for long". In May 1989 the Burmese government reopened the universities that had been closed and a date for the election was set to May the following year. The reason for the government's sudden change was maybe caused by pressure from the outside world after the political situation in Burma became illuminated.

Than Shwe - Leader of the Military Regime

The election in 1990 was by the government said to be democratic, but was it really? Aung San Suu Kyi's party, NLD (National League for Democracy), won 392 of the 492 seats in the Burmese Parlament. So the people's choice was pretty clear, they wanted Aung San Suu Kyi to lead Burma. Still, the government chose to ignore the results and retook the power. The government thereby censored the people's utterance. They stated that the reason for their annulment of the results were to prevent a breakup of the Union.

Aung San Suu Kyi's popularity in the election was due to her continuing resistance against the government. Her speeches speak the mind of the people and she is one of the government's greatest threats.

You can read her well-known speech 'Freedom From Fear' from 1990 here: http://www.famous-speeches-and-speech-topics.info/famous-speeches/aung-san-suu-kyi-speech-freedom-from-fear.htm

Aung San Suu Kyi - the hope of the people

So ... who is this lady anyway?
The story of Aung San Suu Kyi is far from simple. But we're going to do our very best trying to simplify and summarize her story.

Aung San Suu Kyi was the daughter of Aung San, who was the founder of Communist Party of Burma and Union of Burma. He is furthermore recognized as the leading architect of independence - he was a big part of freeing Burma from the british colonial rule in 1947.
Aung San was assassinated the 19th of July 1947 - therefore the past tense in 'was the daughter of'.

Aung San Suu Kyi is not very different from her father - she has not been assassinated, no, but she has also been (and still is) an important proponent for democracy.

She is the former General Secretary of the National League for Democracy, but now she leads the Burmese Democracy Movement. She has also recieved the Nobel Peace Prize for the effort she has put into making Burma a democratic country, where everybody can speak their minds without being censored.
The people of Burma link her to her father, therefore she has become a symbol of hope to them.
The government knew that Aung San Suu Kyi was a threat to their regime, so they placed her in house arrest the 20th of July 1989, and she has been in and out of house arrest (sometimes lasting several years!) ever since.

When the government puts her into house arrest it is their way of censoring the voice of the people and thereby keeping control of the country - and that does indeed not lead anywhere in our opinion.
Aung San Suu Kyi is now 65 years old and is still being kept captured in her own home. She is expected to be released in November this year - but who knows if it's for good this time?

Hey Burma - what's going on?

This is interesting:

Okay, we got you reading - keep reading for a while.

Have you heard of Burma? Burma is a country. If you haven't heard about it, we're not surprised.
This country has been hidden and isolated from the rest of the world during decades of governmental surpression.
It all started in 1962 when the military regime committed a coup and took over the control of the country. The military regime quickly started neglecting the development of the country - they didn't want people to educate themselves because educated people are harder to control.
The government is calling itself 'State Peace and Development Council' (or 'SPDC') - the reliability of the name is pretty poor taking the actions of the government into consideration.
Burma is being subjected to a great deal of censorship. Therefore we're going to expose some scenarios that have been taking place over the years. A post for each area.

You'll be surprised.