Events December 1997-early November 1998..."Ten years after the 1988 pro-democracy uprising was crushed by the army, Burma continued to be one of the world?s pariah states. A standoff between the government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), and other expressions of nonviolent dissent resulted in more than 1,000 detentions during the year. Many were relatively brief, others led eventually to prison sentences. Human rights abuses, including extrajudicial executions, rape, forced labor, and forced relocations, sent thousands of Burmese refugees, many of them from ethnic minority groups, into Thailand and Bangladesh. The change in November 1997 from the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to the gentler-sounding State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) had little impact on human rights practices and policies; the SPDC?s euphemism for continued authoritarian control—?disciplined democracy?— indicated no change. In addition to pervasive human rights violations, an economy in free fall made life even more difficult for the beleaguered population..."