“I was talking to a recently retired army colonel, a man with a dark leathery face and big hands. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and an old longyi, but it was easy to picture him in jungle fatigues, marching his men over the hills. He believed that the civil war would end not through some recognition of ethnic difference, but through assimilation. Roads and railways would grid the nation together. Trade and a single system of education would slowly but surely weaken local difference. In a way, the Burmese army’s policies towards their opponents were the direct opposite of the policy of Western governments towards the ruling junta. Western governments had employed economic embargoes and diplomatic isolation, hoping that by shunning the Burmese generals, the generals would eventually come around. They didn’t. The Burmese army employed very different tactics. They fêted their erstwhile foes, calling them ‘leaders of the national races’. They took them to the big cities, created new desires and allowed them to enrich themselves. Business links, even illicit ones, were actively promoted. They did this knowing that it would sap the insurgents’ strength as fighting organizations. By 2010 the Burmese army was in a[…]” Excerpt From: Thant Myint-U. “Where China Meets India.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 12:56:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015