The Union of Myanmar (Burma) is a basin and delta of the Irrawaddy River ringed by a horseshoe of high mountains that isolates the country from India, China and Thailand with a population of 50 million people. The growing capital city of Rangoon is now home to more than 5 million people.

Economy: Rich in natural resources, but ravaged by the greed of its rulers. Few countries have been so effectively plundered and impoverished by its own leaders. The large teak forests are being stripped. The most successful export is opium, producing over 50% of the world’s supply from the so-called Golden Triangle in the Lao-Thai border region.

Politics: The country has known little peace since the Japanese invasion of World War II, in 1942. Independent from Britain in 1948 as a Federal Union of seven districts and seven ethnic minority states. Insensitivity of the central government to the aspirations of ethnic minorities provoked unrest and bitter ethnic wars in nine areas. Popular demands for democratic rule opened the way for elections in 1990. The opposition party won 85% of the seats, but the military regime refused to hand over power. The secretive military junta, the ‘State Peace and Development Council’, has turned Myanmar into a prison with widespread human rights abuses and killings, forced labour, rape and imprisonment used as tools of repression. Most of the democratic leaders have been arrested, exiled or killed.