About Burma
Burma or Myanmar?
The country has been known for centuries in English as ‘Burma’, but in 1989 the military government decided, as part of a campaign to eradicate the remnants of the colonial past, to make the official English name ‘Myanmar’, the same as it is pronounced in the official language i.e. Burmese – or as it is now known, Myanmar language. This is rather like making Germany’s official name ‘Deutschland’. This is the name by which the country is now known in the UN and other international organisations. However Burma Children’s Fund has chosen to use the name Burma and the other historic names because most of our supporters find this approach more familiar. Also for the many World War 2 vet¬erans and their relatives the original place names of battles trigger special memories of their comrades.
A good website to get information about Burma is run by the Britain Burma Society www.shwepla.net. This site provides a version using the name Myanmar with revised place naming and also an alternative site using the name Burma with historic place naming.
The Country
Located in South East Asia, Burma is naturally beautiful and culturally rich. It shares borders with India and Bangladesh to the North and West. China is on its North Eastern border and Laos and Thailand lie to the East. There is a long Southern coastal strip facing the Andaman Sea and the central heartland is ‘anyar’ – which is the dry zone from about Shwebo to Prome.
There are three main seasons:
- The Hot Season from March to May when temperatures are around 30-35 degrees centigrade and there is little rainfall
- The Rainy Season from June to September when temperatures are around 25-30 degrees centigrade; the monsoon rain falls in torrents with as much as 60 centimetres falling in the month of July in Rangoon
- The Cool Season when temperatures are around 20-25 degrees centigrade and there is little rainfall
- Health Care Spending per person per annum [2007 figures]
- Thailand $160
- Malaysia $218
- Burma $10 [W.H.O estimate]
- There are many orphans in Burma, some cared for in Orphanages, others in their local communities
- Some children are orphaned by disease (particularly AIDS, malaria, and TB). Others are the victims of family break-up or have been abandoned by parents forced to seek work in neighbouring countries. Not all of the children in orphanages have lost parents. Some have been sent deliberately to orphanages in towns and safer parts of the country because of insecurity in their villages, and occasionally return to their home areas to see their families.
- Most of the orphans who come from remote mountainous region of Burma are sick when they arrive at Orphanages and have had no previous education. Few of them speak Burmese which is the official language of the country.
Terrain
Burma has a variety of landscapes with huge mountainous areas in the North and West. The Himalayas rise in the North of Burma where there are some mountains over 5000 metres high. Rivers flow from the mountains in the North, including the 1300 mile Irrawaddy which empties into the river delta and floodplains in the South.
The name ‘Irrawaddy’ means the river of refreshment’ it has been Burma’s transport lifeline for people and goods for centuries. Boats have been navigating the river throughout most of Burma’s history. The oarsmen and ferry boat captains need to be constantly alert for the shifting sand banks and the mist which falls and lifts rapidly in the dry season. The Irrawaddy today is mainly used to transport people and goods, including teak logs which are floated down parts of it. It links the upper parts of Burma with the delta area. A number of holiday boats travel the length of the Irrawaddy and at certain times of year can navigate nearly up to the border with India.
In the 19th Century the British changed its mainly domestic use by building canals and embankments. Rice was planted on a vast scale with eight million acres of paddy producing rice crops which made the area the rice bowl of Asia at the time. During World War 2, and since then, rice production has declined; mainly domestic crops are now grown along the banks of the Irawaddy.
Monsoon forests, which have a dry season of three months or more, occupy the area between Rangoon and Myitkyina. Peninsular Burma, to the South of Moulmein is mainly an area of rainforest. Teak and other hardwoods grow in the forest areas which occupy some forty percent of the landscape.
The major cities are Rangoon [Yangon], Mandalay, Bassein [Pathein], Moulmein] Mawlamyaing], Taunggyi, Myitkyina and Akyab [Sittwe] the latter on the West coast. However a new capital city is being built in central Burma called Pyinmana, situated between Rangoon and Mandalay
Population
There has been no census for over twenty years, and population estimates vary between about 48 and 54 million with about 70% living in rural areas. The government recognizes some 135 ethnic groups in the country. About 70% of the population is descended from the Bamar who arrived in Burma from Central Asia and Tibet before the 15th century. Apart from Chinese and Indians many of the minority ethnic groups live in the hills.
Religion
About 90% of the population are Buddhists, 7% Christian and about 3% are other religions including Spirit worshipers and some Muslims who mainly live in the West of Burma close to Bangladesh
Burma is a land of Pagodas. Burma’s most sacred Buddhist shrine is the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon which Kipling called ‘The Golden Mystery’. It is thought to have its origins 2500 years ago. Successive Kings increased its height and in 1871 King Mindon added a new tier bringing its height to some 98 metres. It is covered with 60 tons of gold leaf and the top is adorned with rubies, diamonds and other precious stones & jewellery.
There are pagodas throughout Burma and they are found in almost every town and village. On the East bank of the Irrawaddy lies the ancient capital of Bagan which has been described as ‘a place of exquisite ruins’. Some four thousand pagodas and stupas fill the landscape. Bagan was founded in 849AD. At the height of the eleventh century empire there were an estimated five thousand temples there, which had been built by successive dynasties in a variety of architectural styles – Indian, Mon and Burmese. In 1975 an earthquake destroyed a large number of temples and, although some have been restored, others have gone forever.
Historical Background
It is difficult to give an accurate account of Burma’s history as many of the official records are unobtainable. Historians would need to search for themselves. However a brief outline is given in most guidebooks or can be found on Wikipedia.
Government
A military regime has ruled Burma since 1988, and the results of elections in 1990 which were overwhelmingly won by the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi have been ignored. The military is currently closely overseeing the drawing up of a new constitution which it says will be followed by a referendum and fresh elections (dates unknown). While opposition political parties exist in Burma, debate is closely controlled and there are over eleven hundred political prisoners.
International Policy
The European Union including the UK has for over a decade imposed targeted sanctions on leading figures of the military regime and their families, banning them from visiting the EU. Military and political ties have also been reduced, and there are no government-to-government aid programmes. However the EU collectively is the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Burma, most of which is channelled through NGOs and UN agencies. It is focused on preventing and treating HIV, TB and malaria and assisting refugees. The US has more wide-ranging economic sanctions. Burma is a member of ASEAN, and has a working but not warm relationship with its neighbours including Thailand, India and China
Inflation
In 2006 the government increased the salaries of state employees tenfold. As a result it is estimated that many prices have gone up more than 30% but some essentials have gone up even more than this.
The local currency is the kyat and the official exchange rate is set at about 6 kyats to the US Dollar, but the real market exchange rate at which the country operates is around 1300 kyats/$ (2007). There are restrictions on Burmese holding dollars although these are only enforced selectively. Although SPDC-issued Foreign Exchange Certificates (FECs) still exist, it is no longer compulsory for visitors to Burma to buy them.
Health
Children’s Health according to a Save the Children report "Malnutrition is a serious problem; half the children under five are thought to be chronically malnourished in some parts of the country where the situation is as bad as we've seen in sub-Saharan Africa". An estimated hundred and fifty thousand Burmese children under the age of five die every year of malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea.
Income – A BBC Report in February 07 stated that some workers get only US$0.80 a day; barely enough to buy some poor-quality rice for a family.
Education
Like all services, education is woefully under-funded, and most state schools are funded predominantly by a mixture of formal and informal user fees (e.g. compulsory donations for teachers’ salaries, equipment). In state schools, the teachers are full time and get 30,000 kyats per month – about £11.
Relocation
The SPDC has embarked on an ambitious but under-funded infrastructure programme of roads, bridges and hydroelectric dams and other public projects. The International Labour Organisation has documented regular use of forced labour on these projects. Some of them have led to the displacement of local communities. This, together with forced labour and portering demands by the army in areas of continued ethnic insurgency, together with general insecurity, have resulted in hundreds of thousands of peasants moving from their villages to urban centres, or Thailand, as refugees and migrant workers. Many children in the pre-schools and orphanages supported by BCF have been sent by their families to towns for their safety, and because of the impossibility of getting an education in much of rural Burma.
Orphans
About Burma - Links
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Email: info@burmachildrensfund.org.uk
Email: info@burmachildrensfund.org.uk
