Last word on Burma - the full story
My search for truth in Burma began in a sleepy embassy in Vientiane, Laos, where I sat sweating on a patent leather sofa in a crumpled silk shirt and tie, pulling phony business cards from my wallet and lying through my teeth. It was two months after the monk-led anti-government uprisings of last September, and I had already been rejected a tourist visa twice in Hong Kong and Bangkok. I decided to hit the diplomatic backwaters with a different tack.
So one night in Vientiane I printed a couple dozen business cards, which peddled me as the owner of a Colorado-based jewelry business that has never existed. I designed my own executive stationary and drafted a formal letter of intent. In three days, I had the visa; stamped, sealed and shining like a coin from the pages of my passport.
I wanted to answer one question in Burma: how has a group of xenophobic generals survived 46 years of global condemnation, multiple popular uprisings and the persistent bloodletting of a handful of ethnic armies?
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