Dark Ruby: Travels in a Troubled Land
by Zoë Schramm-Evans
Category: Burma

Burma -- renamed Myanmar by the governing military junta in 1989 -- has recently begun a huge campaign to attract tourists. But the current image of Burma in the West is not what the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) hoped for. Western media have shown a cruel regime brutally oppressing its people and imprisoning its elected representatives, including Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.Zoe Schramm-Evans visited Burma in late 1995 and found a country almost schizophrenically divided -- even having two names and two currencies. Western travelers are given every inducement to come, but Burmese women cannot leave the country unless accompanied by a male relative. The countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, but it has been the site of countless atrocities.