Myanmar is one country many people have little detailed knowledge about even though it has captured a significant amount of international attention in the past decade.
This is not surprising. For many years the country has sought to behave like a hermit kingdom, just as has been the case of North Korea.
The two countries are classic Asian examples of nations that follow the path of autarky, where political rulers have sought to close the nation off from foreign and global influences.
Having come under British rule in 1885 Burma, as it was then known, eventually gained independence in 1948, remaining a fairly prosperous country with significant exports of rice and teak.
The era of prosperity virtually ended when three-time prime minister U Nu was overthrown in a 1962 military coup led by Gen Ne Win, heralding what the generals termed as “the Burmese way to socialism”.
The name change from Burma to Myanmar was adopted in 1989 after martial law was imposed several months after a pro-democracy movement took to the streets to challenge the military rulers.
The Burmese brand of military-style socialism has brought ruin to the once prosperous country that has abundant natural resources.
Some commentators suggest about 90% of the 56 million people are affected by poverty although authorities in the capital, Yangon (previously Rangoon) claim only 27% of the population live below the poverty line.
Poverty levels remain high despite government claims the economy has been growing at double digit levels in recent years due largely to natural gas exports.
In its latest assessment, the Asian Development Bank said the Myanmar government had claimed the economy had grown by 13.2% in the year to March 2006 due to double digit growth in agriculture, manufacture, mining and services.
But the ADB said: “An objective assessment of economic performance and trends is made difficult by fundamental weaknesses in data.
“Data for variables closely correlated with GDP suggest that economic growth was significantly less than officially estimated.”
It says economic growth did pick up on the back of improved exports, but inflation was also accelerating after a pause in 2004, having reached double digit figures.
There was a chance inflation would rise to 30-40% and “have a disproportionate impact on the large, poor, majority of the population”.
The situation has similarities to developments in 1988 that led to widespread protests and a military crackdown that saw some 3,000 people killed.
The rising levels of poverty and devaluation of the local currency, the kyat, in August of that year led to pro-democracy demonstrations that were partly fuelled months before with the return to Myanmar of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize winner, is the daughter of the highly revered Aung San, who was assassinated by political rivals on July 19, 1947, shortly after Britain retook Burma from Japan.
It was in the wake of the 1988 demonstrations that the military rulers imposed martial law and placed Suu Kyi under house arrest.
Nevertheless her party, the National League for Democracy, went on to win a convincing victory in the July 1990 national elections, described as the first multi-party elections since the military coup in 1962.
But the military refused to hand over power.
History appears to be repeating itself with the latest turn of events.
International displeasure has been made known to the Myanmar military rulers at their crackdown against peaceful protests by Buddhist monks and the public, sparked by large increases in fuel that were announced last August.
Much of the foreign official reaction to the Myanmar crackdown is like that of a toothless dragon since the outside world has never done much to help the plight
of the long suffering people.
Minority groups such as the tribal Karen people have been victimised by the military rulers for more than a generation and several hundred thousand live as refugees in neighbouring Thailand.
Much of the western world should be familiar with Myanmar because that is where much of the world’s illegal supply of heroin has come from.
The Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), which Myanmar joined when the grouping was increased from six to 10 countries, has generally taken a stance that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of member countries.
In the wake of the 1988 troubles and the latest turmoil, Asean has nevertheless been critical of the regime in Myanmar, as has the United States and Britain.
In fact, there is a sense of inevitability of an ensuing military crackdown when large numbers of demonstrators take to the streets, since this is one of the few countries where Mao’s dictum that “power flows from the barrel of a gun” continues to hold sway.
The prosperity that has come with greatly increased trade, largely championed by the country’s membership within Asean, has arguably strengthened the hand of military despots in the past decade.
Exports from Myanmar to Thailand, particularly natural gas, has rise more than 50-fold in value over the past decade to US$2.1 billion last year.
Two other Asean countries, Malaysia and Singapore, were also among Myanmar’s 10 largest export markets.
Singapore, which enjoys a huge trade surplus with Myanmar, together with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia were also among the top 10 exporters to Myanmar.