In Burma the people are afraid of their rulers - and the rulers are so afraid of the people that they hide from them in a crazy capital city hundreds of miles from anywhere. The only open opposition comes from a lonely woman in a besieged villa and a troupe of comedians in a tiny back-street theatre, who are forbidden to tell jokes in their native language.
In the strange league of pariah states, where Cuba jostles with North Korea and Belarus for the title of most fear-ridden nation on Earth, Burma is certainly the oddest of all.
You step off the edge of the known world when you go there. The last part of the journey, from Bangkok to Rangoon, takes less than two hours. But it hauls you roughly out of the smooth, the globalised and the familiar into a dark, disturbing place. More...
See also:
- Burma's "discipline-flourishing democracy" goes on the rampage against dissidents...
- Aung San Suu Kyi is 63 today ... and has spent the last 18 years under house arrest.
- Hitler is alive in Burma, says Ellen Page...
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