Dragging Burma Back to the Past

WHEN Snr-Gen Than Shwe relocated the seat of Burma’s military government to a site some 320 km (200 miles) north of the former capital, Rangoon, he did so without any fanfare. Acting solely on his prerogatives as the undisputed ruler of the country, he offered no explanations to the Burmese people or the rest of the world. The move was announced only after it had become a fait accompli. The creation of Naypyidaw (which translates as the “Abode of Kings”) was an exercise in pure power—an act that appeared to serve no other purpose than to establish Than Shwe as a quasi-monarch in the tradition of past kings who have arbitrarily shifted the country’s administrative center to suit their whims...