Burma A Nakedly Military Government

As the regime applies cosmetics, the people struggle to organize

In Rangoon, one of Southeast Asia's more dilapidated capitals, workmen are busily scrubbing years of grime from the curbstones. Newly painted red-and- white pavement glistens, and gardeners are trimming shrubs in Maha Bandoola Park, next to the Sule Pagoda. All that effort by Burma's seven-week-old military government is part of an official campaign to "Keep Rangoon Pleasant." The cleanup is an attempt to polish the military's tarnished image -- and that has doomed it from the start. "They think we will like them if they clean up the city," says a shop clerk on Merchant Street. "We will never forget or...

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