Abstract:

"Nearly the size of Texas, with a population of more than 40 million, Burma has rich natural resources probably unequaled in Asia. Yet Burma is also a secret country. Isolated for the past 34 years, since a brutal military dictatorship seized power in Rangoon, this rich country has been relegated to one of the world's poorest, the assault on its people all but forgotten by the rest of the world. Award-winning filmmakers John Pilger and David Munro go undercover to expose how the former British colony is ruled by a harsh, bloody and uncompromising military regime. More than a million people have been forced from their homes and untold thousands killed, tortured and subjected to slavery. Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the assassinated independence leader Aung San, spent 6 years under house arrest. In 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, won 82 percent of the parliamentary seats. The generals, shocked by an election result they never expected, threw 200 of the newly-elected MP's into prison. Suu Kyi's party has never been allowed to take office. "The film examines exploitation of the Burmese people by foreign investors and by their own government." She warns that, far from liberalizing life in Burma, foreign investment and tourism can further entrench the military regime."