by Hla Oo (Author)
Burma was known as the Rice Bowl of British Empire where once sun never set. But Burma now is one of the poorest least- developed-countries on earth. Why is naturally-rich Burma in such a horrible shape? Burmese and non-Burmese alike ask and eager to know the answer. The answer is quite simple and also complex. Simple because the answer is the Left-wing Military Dictatorship from early 1962 to late 1988. Complex because no body really knows how Burma ended up with an extremely rare left-wing military dictatorship run by the staunch anti-communist Army under General Ne Win. Every other army in this world is right-wing but Burmese army once was a left-wing Socialist army till 1988. The parallel but completely opposite example compared to Burma was South Korea under Park Chung-hee while Burma was under Ne Win. General Park Chung-hee (1917-1979) industrialized war-ravaged South Korea and lifted his poor people out off poverty while General Ne Win (1911-2002) isolated war-torn Burma and sunk the once-rich people of Burma into extreme poverty. This Burma in Limbo - Book 1: Rich Colony to Dictatorship explains how Burma unfortunately was forced into Ne Win's mad hands by a group of left-wing extreme-nationalists led by our national hero General Aung San (1915-1947) the so-called father of independence and the founding father of modern Burmese Army.