Union of Burma (1988–1989) Union of Myanmar (1989–2011) Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2011) ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် (1988–2011) ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် (2011) | |||||||||
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| 1988–2011 | |||||||||
| Anthem: ကမ္ဘာမကျေ Kaba Ma Kyei "Till the End of the World" | |||||||||
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| Capital | Rangoon (Yangon) (1988–2006) Naypyidaw (2006–2011) | ||||||||
| Largest city | Rangoon | ||||||||
| Official languages | Burmese | ||||||||
| Religion | Theravada Buddhism (official since 2008) | ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Burmese (officially until 1989, still commonly used by general population) Myanmar (Officially after 1989) | ||||||||
| Government | Unitary state under aStratocracy | ||||||||
| Chairman | |||||||||
• 1988–1992 | Saw Maung | ||||||||
• 1992–2011 | Than Shwe | ||||||||
| Vice-Chairman | |||||||||
• 1988–1992 | Than Shwe | ||||||||
• 1992–2011 | Maung Aye | ||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1988–1992 (first) | Saw Maung | ||||||||
• 1992–2003 | Than Shwe | ||||||||
• 2003–2004 | Khin Nyunt | ||||||||
• 2004–2007 | Soe Win | ||||||||
• 2007–2010 (last) | Thein Sein | ||||||||
| Legislature | State Law and Order Restoration Council (1988–1997) State Peace and Development Council (1997–2011) | ||||||||
| Historical era | Cold War | ||||||||
| 18 September 1988 | |||||||||
| 18 June 1989[1] | |||||||||
| 23 July 1997 | |||||||||
| 15 August 2007 | |||||||||
| 7 November 2010 | |||||||||
• Aung San Suu Kyi released | 13 November 2010 | ||||||||
• Renamed to theRepublic of the Union of Myanmar | 31 January 2011[2][3] | ||||||||
• SPDC dissolved | 30 March 2011 | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• Total | 676,570 km2 (261,230 sq mi) (39th) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1990 | 41,335,187[4] | ||||||||
• 2000 | 46,719,698[5] | ||||||||
• 2010 | 50,600,827[6] | ||||||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2010 estimate | ||||||||
• Total | $152.150 billion | ||||||||
• Per capita | $3,090 | ||||||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2010 estimate | ||||||||
• Total | $38.080 billion | ||||||||
• Per capita | $774 | ||||||||
| HDI (2011) | 0.526 low | ||||||||
| Currency | Kyat | ||||||||
| Calling code | 95 | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | MM | ||||||||
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| Today part of | Myanmar | ||||||||
| နိုင်ငံတော် ငြိမ်ဝပ်ပိပြားမှုတည်ဆောက်ရေး အဖွဲ့ နဝတ | |
| Council overview | |
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| Formed | 18 September 1988 |
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| Dissolved | 15 November 1997 |
| Superseding Council |
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| နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေးနှင့်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ နအဖ | |
| Council overview | |
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| Formed | 15 November 1997 |
| Preceding Council |
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| Dissolved | 30 March 2011 |
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Judiciary
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Exiled government
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 Myanmar portal |
TheState Peace and Development Council (Burmese:နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ[nàɪɰ̃ŋàɰ̃dɔ̀ʔédʑáɰ̃θàjajén̥ḭɰ̃pʰʊ̰ɰ̃bjójékaʊ̀ɰ̃sì]; abbreviatedSPDC orနအဖ,[na̰ʔa̰pʰa̰]) was the official name of themilitary government ofBurma (Myanmar) which, in 1997, succeeded theState Law and Order Restoration Council (Burmese:နိုင်ငံတော် ငြိမ်ဝပ်ပိပြားမှု တည်ဆောက်ရေးအဖွဲ့; abbreviatedSLORC orနဝတ) that had seized power under the rule ofSaw Maung in 1988. On 30 March 2011,Senior General and Council ChairmanThan Shwe signed a decree that officially dissolved the council.[7]
SLORC succeeded thePyithu Hluttaw as a legislature and theCouncil of State as a ruling council, after dissolving the state organs of theSocialist Republic of the Union of Burma. In 1997, SLORC was abolished and reconstituted as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The powerful regional military commanders, who were members of SLORC, were promoted to new positions and transferred to the capital of Rangoon (nowYangon). The new regional military commanders were not included in the membership of the SPDC.
The SPDC consisted of eleven senior military officers. The members of the junta[8] wielded a great deal more power than thecabinet ministers, who were either more-junior military officers or civilians. The exception was the Defence Ministry portfolio, which was in the hands of junta leaderSenior GeneralThan Shwe himself. On 15 September 1993, it established theUnion Solidarity and Development Association which was replaced byUnion Solidarity and Development Party on 29 March 2010 in time for the elections.
Although the regime retreated from thetotalitarianBurmese Way to Socialism of the BSPP when it took power in 1988, the regime was widelyaccused of human rights abuses. It rejected the1990 election results and keptAung San Suu Kyi under house arrest until her release on 13 November 2010.[9] The way the junta handledCyclone Nargis was also internationally criticised.[10] The council was officially dissolved on 30 March 2011, with the inauguration of thenewly elected government, led by its former member and Prime Minister, PresidentThein Sein.[11]
The State Law and Order Restoration Council was formed when theBurmese Armed Forces, commanded byGeneralSaw Maung (later self-promoted toSenior General Saw Maung, died July 1997), seized power on 18 September 1988 crushing the8888 Uprising. On the day it seized power SLORC issued Order No.1/1988 stating that the Armed Forces had taken over power and announced the formation of the SLORC. With Order No. 2/1988, the SLORC abolished all organs of state power that were formed under the 1974 Burmese constitution. The Pyithu Hluttaw (the legislature under the 1974 Constitution), the Council ofMinisters (the Cabinet), the Council of People's Justices (theJudiciary), the Council of People's Attorneys (the Attorney-General Office), the Council of People's Inspectors (theAuditor-General Office), as well as the State/Region, Township, Ward/Village People's Councils were abolished.
The SLORC also stated that the services of the Deputy Ministers in the previousBurma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government which it replaced were also terminated. (Under the 1974 Burmese Constitution the Council of Ministers acted as a Cabinet but since the Deputy Ministers were not considered to be formally part of the Council of Ministers, the SLORC made sure that the Deputy Ministers – together with the Ministers' – services in the previous BSPP government from whom it had taken over power were also terminated.) The Orders that SLORC issued on the day of its takeover can be seen in the 19 September 1988 issue ofThe Working People's Daily. The first Chairman of SLORC was GeneralSaw Maung, laterSenior General, who was also the Prime Minister. He was removed as both Chairman of SLORC and Prime Minister on 23 April 1992 when GeneralThan Shwe, laterSenior General, took over both posts from him.
On 15 November 1997, SLORC was abolished and reconstituted as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Most, but not all members of the abolished SLORC, were in the SPDC military regime.
| Chairman | Term of office | Political party | ||||
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| No. | Portrait | Name (Born–Died) | Took office | Left office | Duration | |
| 1 | Senior GeneralSaw Maung (1928–1997) | 18 September 1988 | 23 April 1992 (deposed) | 3 years, 218 days | Tatmadaw | |
| 2 |  | Senior GeneralThan Shwe (b. 1933) | 23 April 1992 | 30 March 2011 | 18 years, 341 days | Tatmadaw |
| Vice-chairman | Term of office | Political party | ||||
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| No. | Portrait | Name (Born–Died) | Took office | Left office | Duration | |
| 1 | | GeneralThan Shwe (b. 1933) | 18 September 1988 | June 1993 | 3 years, 218 days | Tatmadaw |
| 2 |  | Vice-Senior GeneralMaung Aye (b. 1938) | July 1993 | 30 March 2011 | 17 years, 8 months | Tatmadaw |
Ordered by protocol:
Western non-governmental organisations, such as theBurma Campaign UK, theUS Campaign for Burma,Amnesty International andHuman Rights Watch have made a variety of serious accusations against the SPDC. Reports by these organisations as well as the United Nations and theKaren Human Rights Group alleged gross human rights abuses that took place in Burma under their regime, including:
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One of the worst atrocities in Burma took place during theuprising of August 1988, when millions of Burmese marched throughout the country calling for an end to military rule. Soldiers shot hundreds of protesters and killed an estimated 3,000 people in the following weeks. During the August and Septemberdemonstrations of 2007, at least 184 protesters were shot and killed and many were tortured. Under the SPDC, theBurmese army engaged in military offensives against ethnic minority populations, committing acts that violatedinternational humanitarian law.[13]
It has been alleged that the SPDC forcibly recruited children – some as young as 10 – to serve in its army, theTatmadaw. It is difficult to estimate the number ofchild soldiers used to serve in the Burmese army, but there were thousands, according toHuman Rights Watch,[14][15] the Child Soldiers Global Report 2008[16] andAmnesty International.[citation needed]
TheUN Secretary-General named the SPDC in four consecutive reports for violating international standards prohibiting the recruitment and use of child soldiers.[17]
Human Rights Watch reported[18] that sinceCyclone Nargis in May 2008, the Burmese authorities expelled hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced persons from schools, monasteries, and public buildings, and encouraged them to return to their destroyed villages in theIrrawaddy Delta. The authorities emptied some public buildings and schools to use aspolling stations for the 24 Mayreferendum on a new constitution, despite pleas fromUnited Nations Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon to postpone the referendum and focus their resources onhumanitarian relief. The SPDC was alleged to have evicted people from dozens of government-operated tented relief camps in the vicinity of the former capitalYangon, ordering the residents to return to their homes, regardless of the conditions they face.
The forced evictions were part of government efforts to demonstrate that theemergency relief period was over and that the affected population were capable of rebuilding their lives withoutforeign aid. People who were forced from their homes by Cyclone Nargis are considered to beinternally displaced persons under international law. Under the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the Burmese government was urged to ensure the right of "internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country."
According to theInternational Labour Organization (ILO), despite the new quasi-civilian government taking power in Burma, forced labour continues to be widespread in Burma. It is imposed mainly by the military, for portering (that is, carrying of provisions to remote bases, or on military operations), road construction, camp construction and repair, and for a range of other tasks. In March 1997, theEuropean Union withdrew Burma's trade privileges because of the prevalence of forced labour and other abuses. The same year, the ILO established a Commission of Inquiry to look into allegations of forced labour, coming up with a damning report the following year.
In November 2006, theInternational Labour Organization (ILO) announced it was to seek at theInternational Criminal Court[19] "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the allegations offorced labour of its citizens by the military. According to the ILO, an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labour in Burma.[20]
Even before the large-scale demonstrations began in August 2007, the authorities arrested many well-known opponents of the government on political grounds, several of whom had only been released from prison several months earlier. Before the 25–29 September crackdown, more arrests of members of the opposition partyNational League for Democracy (NLD) took place, which critics say was a pre-emptive measure before the crackdown.
Mass round-ups occurred during the crackdown itself, and the authorities continued to arrest protesters and supporters throughout 2007. Between 3,000 and 4,000political prisoners were detained, including children and pregnant women, 700 of whom were believed still in detention at year's end. At least 20 were charged and sentenced underanti-terrorism legislation in proceedings which did not meet international fair trial standards. Detainees and defendants were denied the right to legal counsel.[21]
ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေပြဋ္ဌာန်းချက်များနှင့်အညီ ၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေသည် ပထမအကြိမ် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်စတင်ကျင်းပသည့် ၃၁-၁-၂၀၁၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် စတင်အာဏာတည်ခဲ့သည်။
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