Last year, Burma’s impoverished citizens were both mesmerised and enraged by a widely circulated underground video of the lavish wedding of the daughter of their country’s repressive ruler, Senior General Than Shwe.

The bride, glittering in heavy jewellery, and her groom, an army man, poured champagne, cut cake and posed for photographs, all to the polite applause of other members of the ruling military elite, sitting stiffly around dining tables.