Source: MAPS IN MINUTES™ © RH Publications (1997)

A country in south-east Asia, with borders (on the west) with India and Bangladesh, on the north-east with China, on the east with Laos, and on the south-east and south with Thailand.

Physical

Myanmar has a long, tropical western coast on the Indian Ocean and is cut off from the rest of Asia by mountains in the north and east. Between the mountains and down the centre of the country run the broad, cultivable valley of the Irrawaddy River and several tributary valleys. To the east is the valley of the Salween River.

Economy

Myanmar has a mainly agricultural economy. Crops include rice, pulses, beans—all important exports—and sesame, groundnuts, and sugar cane. Other major exports include natural gas, wood products, fish, clothing, jade, and gems. Mineral resources include copper, zinc, lead, tin, and silver. The isolationist policy of the former military regime ended with the introduction of civilian government in 2011, and now Myanmar is seeking to attract international investment.

History

There was a Mon kingdom, Prome, in Burma in the 5th century ad. After the arrival of the Burmans in the 9th century there was much hostility between them and the indigenous peoples. Following a period of Mon ascendancy the Burmans of Pagan unified the country for a time (c.849–1287). From the Mons an Indian script and Theravada Buddhism spread to Pagan and thence throughout Burma. During the 16th century the country was re-united under the Toungoo, but wars against Thai kingdoms and Laos exhausted it. The last dynasty, the Konbaung, founded by Alaungpaya in 1757, was constantly engaged in wars against Siam, which led to the fall of the Siamese state of Ayuthia in 1767. In 1770 Burma repelled a Chinese invasion. The conquest of the region of Arakan brought the Burmese border to the boundary of British India.

Burma was invaded by the British (1824–26; 1852; 1885). The first two Anglo-Burmese Wars led to the cession of territory and the third resulted in the deposition of King Thibaw and the establishment of Upper Burma as a province of British India. In 1931 there was a two-year uprising by the peasantry against European companies, and the Dobama Asi-ayone (Thakin) Party demanded independence. In 1937 Burma became a Crown colony, with a large degree of autonomy, Ba Maw being elected Premier. When Japanese troops moved into Malaya in 1942, a Burma National Army formed under Aung San, was at first ready to welcome the Japanese. This force however defected to the Allies during the later campaign of liberation. Full independence was gained in 1948, Burma electing to remain outside the Commonwealth of Nations. Civil war erupted, with challenges to central government by the Karens of the Irrawaddy Delta and the Chin, Kayah, and Kachin hill tribes. Unu’s government succumbed to an army coup in 1962, led by Ne Win. He established an authoritarian state based on quasi-socialist and Buddhist principles, maintaining a policy of strict neutrality. When he retired in 1986, U San Yu became chairman of the governing Burma Socialist Program Party, still faced by intransigent ethnic insurgent groups. In September 1988 General Saw Maung seized power, imposing martial law, and changing the country’s name to Myanmar. Its social, economic, and political problems only worsened. During 1989, Aung San’s daughter Daw Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a leader of the opposition, but was placed under house arrest. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a two-thirds majority for a constituent assembly in elections in 1990. The military regime refused to allow the assembly to meet and arrested NLD leaders. By now various ethnic separatist guerrilla groups and private armies were roaming the country. Fighting in the Muslim majority border state of Rakhine between government forces and Rohingya rebels led to some 200,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh in 1992. In April 1992 Saw Maung was replaced by his deputy, General Than Shwe. Some degree of political liberalization followed, but the government’s emergency powers remained in force. A national convention to coordinate the drafting of a new constitution was inaugurated in 1993, but few meetings were held. Aung San Suu Kyi agreed to hold meetings with military leaders and was released from house arrest in 1995. However, the NLD boycotted the national convention, which it claimed was not committed to implementing democratic reform, and was then formally expelled from the convention by the military. By mid-1995 15 guerrilla groups had agreed to ceasefires, but the Karens and the Mong Tai Army continued to fight. Aung San Suu Kyi was again placed under house arrest from 2000 to 2002 and from 2003 to 2010. Significant reforms began in 2008 with the ratification of a new constitution, which came into force after parliamentary elections in 2010. In 2011 the military handed over power to a civilian government. International suspicions that these changes were a front for continued military control were largely allayed by a rapid series of liberal reforms, including the release of many political prisoners and the legalization of the NLD. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to parliament in 2012. However, doubts remain about the genuineness and durability of the reforms: in particular, the military’s exact role in the new regime is unclear. In early 2015 the government and several rebel groups reached a draft ceasefire agreement.

In the November 2015 election, which was generally considered to be fair, the NLD recorded a clear victory and Htin Kyaw (a close ally of Aung San Suu Kyi) was elected President by the legislature. Suu Kyi herself was blocked as a presidential candidate by the constitution (as her sons have British passports), but she took up the new position of State Counsellorminister and is recognized as the de facto head of the Burmese government. In 2016-17 Suu Kyi was severely criticized by many former admirers for her failure to condemn violent attacks on the Rohingya, a minority Muslim group, by Burma’s police and military. By the late summer of 2017 an estimated half a million Rohingya had fled to neighbouring countries.