while combating inflation, unemployment, corruption,
and crime. Today, reforms and democratization keep Bulgaria on a
path toward eventual integration into NATO and the EU - with which
it began accession negotiations in 2000.
Burkina Faso:
Independence from France came to Burkina Faso
(formerly Upper Volta) in 1960. Governmental instability during the
1970s and 1980s was followed by multiparty elections in the early
1990s. Several hundred thousand farm workers migrate south every
year to Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana.
Burma:
Despite multiparty elections in 1990 that resulted in the
main opposition party winning a decisive victory, the military junta
ruling the country refused to hand over power. Key opposition leader
and Nobel Peace Prize recipient AUNG San Suu Kyi, under house arrest
from 1989 to 1995, was again placed under house detention in
September 2000; her supporters are routinely harassed or jailed.
Burundi:
Between 1993 and 2000, wide-spread, often intense ethnic
violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions in Burundi created hundreds
of thousands of refugees and left tens of thousands dead. Although
some refugees have returned from neighboring countries, continued
ethnic strife has forced many others to flee. Burundian troops,
seeking to secure their borders, have intervened in the conflict in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Cambodia:
Following a five-year struggle, communist Khmer Rouge
forces captured Phnom Penh in 1975 and ordered the evacuation of all
cities and towns; over 1 million displaced people died from
execution or enforced hardships. A 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove
the Khmer Rouge into the countryside and touched off 13 years of
fighting. UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some
semblance of normalcy, as did the rapid diminishment of the Khmer
Rouge in the mid-1990s. A coalition government, formed after
national elections in 1998, brought renewed political stability and
the surrender of remaining Khmer Rouge forces.
Cameroon:
The former French Cameroon and part of British Cameroon
merged in 1961 to form the present country. Cameroon has generally
enjoyed stability, which has permitted the development of
agriculture, roads, and railways, as well as a petroleum industry.
Despite movement toward democratic reform, political power remains
firmly in the hands of an ethnic oligarchy.
Canada:
A land of
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