... The aim was to convince the senator that Aung San Suu Kyi was a front for ‘red subversives’. The taxi dropped us far from the long green fence of number 54 University Avenue. Our cameras were concealed in shoulder bags; a figure in sunglasses stood up to watch us. We peered through a hole in the corrugated iron gate and a face asked our names. Inside, another sunglasses told us to write down our names and occupations. We then crossed an imaginary line into friendly territory and were greeted warmly by Suu Kyi’s assistant, U Win Htein, who was arrested with her and spent six years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement. He led us into the house, a stately pile fallen on hard times, overlooking a garden that tumbles down to Inya Lake and to a trip-wire, a reminder that this was one woman’s prison. John Pilger, article 4th May 1996 ‘In a Land of Fear’
The students began it. Then each group came out with a banner saying, We’re from the doctors. We’re from the lawyers. And they walked through the streets shouting various slogans of which the most common was, This is our business. Martin Moreland, former UK Ambassador to Burma
The regime in Burma is so bad, so bad, that Britain does not sell arms to them! Mark Thomas Comedy Product s4e1, Channel 4 1999
The Army will shoot to kill. Ne Win
Keep filming until they shoot us. Burmese cameraman to fellow cameraman filming carnage at Rangoun/Yangong General Hospital
We have been uniformly impressed by the competence, knowledge and commitment of these ministers and their associates to the economic development of Myanmar as a basis for the national and political advancement of the people of their country. Bob Hawke, former Australian Prime Minister
You know, I understand why Burma is not in the news. We’re just not fashionable. Aung San Suu Kyi
Those who have already been in prison, they know what it’s like to be in a Burmese prison, and they know that any day they are liable to be put back there. And yet they do not give up. Aung San Suu Kyi
My top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves. Aung San Suu Kyi
There were times when I was worried for my colleagues, and there were times when I worried for our people out there when they seemed to undergoing a lot of oppression, and I worried about my sons a lot. Aung San Suu Kyi
The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations. Aung San Suu Kyi
The best way to help Burma is to empower the people of Burma, to help us have enough self-confidence to obtain what we want for ourselves. Aung San Suu Kyi
I think when the people in Burma stop thinking about whether or not they’re free, it’ll mean that they’re free. Aung San Suu Kyi
Solidarity is a beautiful word because it means that you reach out to those who are different from you and who have to cope with different circumstances because we recognize that we all share the same human needs and same values. It is the values that count most of all. The value of freedom of thought, the value of democratic practices, the value of respect for your fellow human beings. (Burma & Solidarity) Aung San Suu Kyi
But despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless – and helpless – mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood. Patriotism, which should be the vital love and care of a people for their land, is debased into a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of authoritarian rulers who define the interests of the state in terms of their own limited interests. Aung San Suu Kyi, In Quest of Democracy
Monsoon in Burma. Five months in every year. War in Burma made up in ferocity for what it lacked in scale. The World at War 14/26: It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow, ITV 1973
Burma: jagged mountain and foetid swamp, clothed in jungle and scored by steep river valleys ... Every type of disease: malaria, dysentery, scrub typhus, deng fever, prickly heat, particularly in monsoon. Mud: it might have been Flanders in the First World War. ibid.
The British retreated in confusion. ibid.
The Japanese despised those who surrendered. ibid.
Mountbatten arrives as Supreme Commander. ibid.
We were wet all the time. And while we were wet we got the leech on to our bodies. Burmese soldier
On 15th December Japanese armies had invaded the British colony of Burma. The Japanese were attempting to cut supply lines to their Nationalist Chinese enemies and to use Burma as a base for attacks on British India. World War II: The Complete History: Six Months to Run Wild, Discovery 2000
Burma: closed to the outside world for five decades. A mysterious land. A land of secrets. Maybe half of Burma is covered in forest. It’s thought to be a sanctuary to some of the rarest and most exotic wildlife on Earth. Wild Burma: Nature’s Lost Kingdom I, BBC 2013
When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.
Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
her teeth were ivory;
I said, ‘For twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me.’
She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five. George Orwell
Burma, the world’s second-largest opium-growing region after Afghanistan – a significant part of the resistance to Burma’s foul military junta is financed by two less-than-salubrious trades: trafficking in heroin and trafficking in women. Misha Glenny, McMafia
This is my country. And this is the way it’s been for more than 40 years. I only remember a few weeks when things were any different. In 1988 I was just a little boy. But that’s when everybody in Burma got into the streets. They’d had enough of military rulers. They wanted change. It was the students who led the demonstrations … At the end of the day 3,000 people were killed in the streets. And it was all over. Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country ***** 2008
We have no more people to die. ibid.
I feel the world is forgetting about us. ibid.
I followed very close and saw them throw the demonstrator on the truck. ibid.
The movement is bigger and bigger. ibid.
‘The whole world must know that the monks are on strike.’ ibid. head of monks
The monks protected the reporters. ibid.
‘Today up to 100,000 people took to the streets of Rangoon.’ ibid. news
‘They beat them up and dragged them on to trucks.’ ibid. witness
‘We’ve seen amazing scenes of defiance on the streets of Rangoon today.’ ibid. BBC news
‘Soldiers beat up and arrested the monks.’ ibid. witness
They are shooting. ibid.
The monks were gone. Only the students were left in the street. Just like 1988. And military trucks were going round the city to chase them down. ibid.
An humanitarian crisis on an epic scale. Hundreds of thousands of refugees driven out of Myanmar by military action. Tonight on Panorama how August’s brutal assault on the Rohingya was the climax of years of persecution and the result of deliberate military preparation. Panorama: Myanmar: The Hidden Truth, BBC 2017
How months earlier Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, had been warned that atrocities were being committed. ibid.
Thousands were killed in attacks on village after village. ibid.
The persecution began years ago. ibid.
I’m on a journey around beautiful and troubled Burma, one of the largest countries in south-east Asia. A land that suffered generations of dictatorship and ongoing war. It’s supposed to be a fledgling democracy that’s opening up to the world, but Burma is still a place of tragedy. This World: Burma with Simon Reeve I, BBC 2018
Burma’s all powerful military has turned on its own people … a Biblical exodus. ibid.