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As Scrutiny Grows, Burma Moves Its Capital
A woman prepares fish for sale in Rangoon, where markets teem despite high inflation. The Burmese government asserts that it is moving the capital away from the city to a more desolate area to develop outlying regions.
(By Alan Sipress -- The Washington Post)
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Yet Rangoon's markets still teem. Store shelves are heavy with cheap goods from China and Thailand. Crowds of peddlers, hawking shoes, shortwave radios and pirated software, make the sidewalks a maze, and the narrow aisles of the traditional meat and vegetable markets are clotted with shoppers.
Aware that a rice shortage could spark unrest, the government has invested heavily in dams, reservoirs and pump stations for irrigation, directing farmers about five years ago to raise two crops annually rather than one. Rice exports are also regulated. As a result, the staple is widely available and, in recent weeks, the price has dropped.
As the military rulers have isolated themselves, they have done the same with Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. The military has repressed the party in waves since an initial clampdown in 1988.
The 60-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate was arrested for a third time in 2003 and is now confined to her lakefront home in northern Rangoon under heavy police guard. The government has eliminated most of her household staff, leaving only two female companions. Her only visitor is a doctor who comes once a month, and her communication with the outside has grown even less frequent over the past six months, foreign officials said.
Outside Suu Kyi's home, her party's flag -- a gold peacock on a red field -- has faded. Members of her party said no one has been able to replace it. About 300 of their offices have been shut down by the government, leaving only the national headquarters, a two-floor storefront operation cluttered with creaky, old wooden furniture and stacks of musty files. Some members are jailed and others are barred from holding meetings, party officials reported.
"They won't let us move an inch," explained one of the party's leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal. "What is our plan? To survive. We are still here after 17 years and this is how we intend to stay."
But another party figure was more melancholy than defiant.
"We are not pushing anything," said the activist, who had been elected to parliament in the 1990 vote. "We are just floating on the political current. We are trying not to drown."
Correspondent Ellen Nakashima in Bangkok contributed to this report.
