Country

Myanmar (Burma)

Back in Time in Burma

During its 46-year rule, Burma's military government has turned one of the wealthiest countries of Southeast Asia into one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world.

The damages are evident everywhere; pre-WWII commuter buses growl through the cities and grinding poverty forces beggars and prostitutes to ply the streets beneath Orwellian billboards.

Burma's Largest Rebel Army Battles Increase in Opium Production

The frontline of Burma's largest rebel army is a lonely hilltop ringed by a land mine-littered jungle, mountains controlled by the Burmese military and a patchwork of poppy fields visible through a rusting pair of Soviet binoculars.

"It's opium," said Nan Daw, a captain in the Shan State Army South. "I know because I have patrolled there."

Burmese Rebels Celebrate a Shan New Year

Lung Lawn walked for 17 nights to get here, through heavily mined forests, past Burmese military battalions and over the mountainous battlefields where rebel guerillas ambush them.

The new moon of December is approaching, and he's come to celebrate the New Year of his people; the Shan, Burma's largest ethnic minority. He's 46 years old — as old as the military government's iron-fisted rule over Burma, and as old as his people's armed resistance against it.