The Burmese Labyrinth

In 2011, Burma/Myanmar embarked on a democratic transition from brutal military rule that culminated four years later, when the first free election in decades resulted in a landslide victory for the party of celebrated Nobel prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet, even as the international community was celebrating a new dawn, old wars were raging in the northern borderlands, and a crisis was emerging in western Arakan State, as the regime intensified its oppression of the vulnerable Muslim Rohingya community.

The trigger for the latter was a series of episodes of intercommunal violence between Muslims and Buddhists in 2012, during which the army and police took sides, attacking the former. By 2017, the conflict had escalated into a military onslaught against the Rohingya, provoking the most desperate refugee crisis of our times, as over 750,000 of them fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In The Burmese Labyrinth, journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache provides an in-depth story of the country, combining reportage and history. Burma has always been an uneasy balance between multiple ethnic groups and religions. He examines the deep roots behind the ethnic divisions that extend back prior to the colonial period and so shockingly exploded in recent times. This is a powerful portrait of a nation in perpetual conflict with itself.