Junta Myanmar

Senior General Than Shwe, head of the State Peace and Development Council.

Wikipedia on General Shwe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Than_Shwe.

April 14, 2007 minutes and remarks reported to the United Nations in Geneva: http://www.myanmargeneva.org/statement&speech/speech_SGTS/SGTS_inspects%20RakhineState.htm.

Reuters' "Factbox: Myanmar's military strong man, Than Shwe": http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSB84352220070925.

One may wonder whether Myanmar may shape up as another struggle by traditional people to gather in the reins given to a military-backed capitalism resulting in a de facto and profiteering aristocracy.  The revolutionary idea then may be to obtain democracy in order to supplant it with a more favorable socialism that itself responds to an alternative autocratic system, in which case the world stumbles back to a familiar spin cycle.

Deputy Senior General Maung Aye.

Wikipedia on General Aye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maung_Aye.

The struggle in Myanmar may shape up as a common (I got this term from Wiki) "kleptocracy"--a system in which those who acquire power use it to enrich themselves (to excess).  Capitalism.  Communism.  Theocracy.  Monarchy.  Democracy: are the world's political leaders secretly off in a club of their own aggrandizing design? 

Myanmar would seem to provide one more reason for entertaining the possibility.

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1. AP.  "Myanmar's ruling generals are men with tough reputations."  Herald-Tribune, Asia Pacific, September 25, 2007.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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