By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 19 minutes ago



BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar troops waging their biggest military offensive in almost a decade have uprooted more than 11,000 ethnic minority civilians in a campaign punctuated by torture, killings and the burning of villages, according to reports from inside the country and Thailand.

The campaign by government troops in eastern Myanmar to suppress a decades-old insurgency among the Karen people began in November. But it has intensified in the past month, according to reports from the Free Burma Rangers, a group of Westerners and ethnic minority volunteers who provide aid to displaced people in the country formerly known as Burma.

Scores of villages have been abandoned and their inhabitants forced to flee into jungles. Some 11,000 people have fled their homes due to the onslaught, the Free Burma Rangers said. About 1,500 refugees have fled across the border to Thailand, and aid officials fear others will follow in coming months to swell the more than 140,000 already in Thai refugee camps.

Jack Dunford, executive director of the key frontier aid agency Thailand Burma Border Consortium, confirmed the influx, saying the refugees from Myanmar's Karen State have arrived with "stories of increased (junta) troop activity, widespread destruction of villages and crops, and human rights abuses."

The military-run government has denied any human rights violations against ethnic minority groups, including the Karen, which it blames for recent bombings.

"There is no offensive against the Karen National Union but security measures have been taken and cleaning-up operations are being conducted in some areas where (KNU) terrorists are believed to be hiding," Information Minister Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan told reporters in Yangon earlier this month, referring to the main Karen rebel group.

On Wednesday, Myanmar's ruling military junta threatened to dissolve the pro-democracy party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for alleged links with illegal organizations — a reference to Thailand-based opposition groups, which the regime regularly blames for bombings and planning attacks.

The NLD won a landslide election in 1990, but the military refused to cede power and has kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for about 10 of the last 17 years and sent many of her followers to jail.

"The government has enough evidence to declare the NLD (National League for Democracy) as an unlawful association for its links with terrorist groups and exiled dissident organizations, but the government has not done so for various reasons," said Kyaw Hsan.

The United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on the junta for its poor human rights record and failure to release Suu Kyi.

Analysts say the scale of the recent attacks is the largest since a major offensive against the Karen in 1997 and the KNU fears it may continue through this year's rainy season which begins around May. In the past, military operations were restricted to the dry season when movement through the rugged, malarial border region is easier.

"They don't want the KNU near their new capital," said KNU General-Secretary Mahnshar Laphan, echoing some analysts who say the military is trying to secure the hinterland east of Pyinmana, which was recently established as the new capital.

He said the Karen were ready to restart peace talks that were broken off in 2004, but the offensive showed that "they don't accept dialogue."

Myanmar's military regimes, which first came to power in 1962, have battled numerous ethnic minority insurgent groups seeking autonomy until a former junta member, Gen. Khin Nyunt, negotiated cease-fires with 17 of them. But his ouster in 2004 reinforced hard-liners within the ruling junta and "resulted in increasing hostility directed at ethnic minority groups," U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in its 2006 report.

The KNU are the largest of the rebel organizations still facing off against the regime's 500,000-member military.

The violence of recent years, largely ignored by the international community, has spawned an estimated 1 million internal refugees and accelerated an exodus to neighboring countries.

...

Nearby, a still unidentified villager was found with one of his eyes gouged out and his nose cut off, one of several incidents of torture that the group has documented with graphic photographs and video.

The group says the military is trying to separate the civilians from the guerrillas, destroying villages and food stocks to deprive the insurgents of any local support. After residents flee, the areas are mined to prevent return of the villagers who seek shelter in remote, inhospitable regions or flee to refugee camps along the Thai border, it says.

The violence of recent years, largely ignored by the international community, has spawned an estimated 1 million internal refugees and accelerated an exodus to neighboring countries.

Interesting. This from April.

I wonder what this has to do with the current troubles, which seem to be a popular and religious uprising? Is it unrelated? Or was the minority persecution the tip of the iceberg?

It's amazing to me how the Myanmar Junta has managed to escape world attention. Most people in America can't even pronounce it, much less find it on a map.

Interesting. This from April.

I wonder what this has to do with the current troubles, which seem to be a popular and religious uprising? Is it unrelated? Or was the minority persecution the tip of the iceberg?

It's amazing to me how the Myanmar Junta has managed to escape world attention. Most people in America can't even pronounce it, much less find it on a map.

Burmese Mountain Tortoises are the most intelligent tortoises in the world They're incredibly personable, too.

How intelligent is a tortoise ever going to get?

And what are tortoises doing in mountains?

Are they anything like the famed Norwegian Blue Parrots?

Mr. Gambari came to Myanmar as the representative of a world that has watched in outrage as a military government that has ruled through force and intimidation called out its troops to fire into crowds of demonstrators.

“He’s the best hope we have,” said the Singaporean foreign minister, George Yeo, speaking at the United Nations before the visit. “If he fails then the situation can become quite dreadful.”

But some analysts doubted that the visit could have a significant effect on a ruling clique that has resisted all international efforts — both confrontational and friendly — to modify its behavior over the years. Repeated visits by U.N. envoys have failed to bring reconciliation between the junta and the political opposition or to secure the release of Mrs.Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Reconciliation is now farther away than ever from reality,” said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst who is based in Thailand. “The military’s violent response took the lid off the anger and pent-up frustration that has accumulated over the past 19 years and it will be difficult for the military administration to put things back in order.”

Analysts said a key to modifying the Myanmar junta’s behavior would be pressure from China, its main trading partner and political buffer in the outside world. On Saturday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China assured Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain that Beijing was “very much concerned about the current situation” and said, “China hopes all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and use peaceful means to restore its stability as soon as possible.”

But there was no indication that China would join international efforts to boycott or sanction Myanmar. Human rights groups and exiles who monitor events in the closed country said there were small demonstrations Saturday, and Reuters reported that shots were fired to disperse a group of 100 youths. But the flow of information from Myanmar has been slowed by interruptions to Internet connections, and the monitoring groups said they were having difficulty reaching their contacts.

“They don’t want the world to see what is going on there,” a White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said Friday.

Little is known about the hundreds of people who were pushed into trucks during the demonstrations or about the monks who were hauled during the night from their monasteries. Prisons are reported to be overcrowded and detention centers have been created in schools and other public buildings, human rights groups said.

Basil Fernando, director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, a private monitoring group, estimated the number of people arrested at 1,200, including 700 monks. “There is no possibility in any form of the authorities’ being relied upon for any figures,” he said, adding, “Nobody knows where these people are and there is no reason to believe they are not being harmed.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/world/as...nd-myanmar.html

Enough carrots. Time for the stick.

We don't have much of a stick, so far as I can see.

The president spoke out at the UN in defense of the dissidents, and got nothing but the charge of irrelevance to the US people by Chris Matthews for his efforts.

Enough carrots. Time for the stick.

What stick would that be? Seriously.

What sort of options do you think are available?

Seriously?

I don't know, really. The traditional sticks?

Sanctions, and Prosecution in the ICC? They're trying international pressure.

Make China take out the junta. They put them there.

How? I don't know. what has worked in the past aside from arming the opposition? Somehow, I don't see the monks taking up arms.

Are you saying it's hopeless? That there is nothing any country can do?

Then say so.

Myanmar's Best Chance
by Alan Bock

The current unrest in Myanmar is inspiring to anybody who values political freedom and deplores the kind of oppressive regime the Myanmarese military has imposed on the country for close to half a century. And while the choice no doubt had something to do with not wanting to place too much emphasis on Iraq at a time when, Petraeus aside, things still aren’t going all that well, I’ll stipulate that President Bush is probably sincere in his admiration for the demonstrators and his loathing for the regime. It was potentially helpful to the cause of freedom in Myanmar for him to stress the situation there so prominently, although the sanctions he announced are likely to have little or no effect.

The situation in Myanmar makes a strong case that looking at international relations from what in some academic circles is called the "realist" perspective can be helpful in understanding why things shake out the way they do. The "realists" (as distinguished from so-called "idealists" who are inclined to embark on crusades to make the word safe for democracy or impose regime-change on countries that don’t live up to their not always consistent standards) argue that nation-states are governed, especially in their conduct of foreign affairs, by and large, by interests rather than ideals. They may prefer freedom or democracy, but alliances, economic interests and geopolitical realities determine what they do most of the time.

From this perspective, the condition of the rebels in Myanmar is dicey, especially if they hope (which they probably don’t) to get effective help from other countries. President Bush may sympathize with the demonstrators and want to publicize their cause, but Myanmar is not within the U.S. geopolitical sphere of influence. Even aside from exhaustion caused by the misbegotten Iraq war, the United States is not about to commit military resources there. Myanmar’s rulers have isolated it economically from almost every other country except China (which is one reason economic sanctions by the U.S., European countries and even the UN will have little effect), so while the country has enough natural resources that it should be prosperous, no Western or multinational companies have active interests there.

(more) http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=11689

Seriously?

I don't know, really. The traditional sticks?

Sanctions,

and Prosecution in the ICC?

They're trying international pressure.

Make China take out the junta. They put them there.

How? I don't know. what has worked in the past aside from arming the opposition? Somehow, I don't see the monks taking up arms.

Are you saying it's hopeless? That there is nothing any country can do?

Then say so.

We could send them real sticks.

I'm not sure what, if any, sticks are available. I'm just waiting for Arturo to fill us in. I'm very curious.

Until China objects?

Which are? Forget any possibility, or even threat of military intervention or a peacekeeping force.
Mm hmm? How dependent is Myanmar on the United States? Setting aside America, who are its major trading partners, outside of China, and how much influence do they have or are they willing to bring to bear?
Does the ICC have jurisdiction? Have they signed? I know that America has fought the ICC tooth and nail.
Alas, America's pretty much blown its wad there too. American influence, soft power, ain't what it used to be.
Yeah, let's push around China.
Soft power, economic moves, international consensus, sanctuary and asylum. But truthfully, the history is that we simply put up with dictators until they grow so rotten they're thrown out. Then we spend our time deciding if we like the new guys or not.
Not at all. Arturo feels that we should drop the carrots and bring out the sticks. I'm not sure what, if any, sticks are available. I'm just waiting for Arturo to fill us in. I'm very curious.

I said real sticks, and I meant real sticks. Every time we send anything more down the road lefties bitch because they end up getting used in some way not in line with lefty non-violence.

Call out the Flying Tigers.

In their wheelchairs?

What kind of 'real sticks' Arturo?

Find a tree and get a chainsaw.

The idea of a real stick beyond your comprehension?

Nope. I know what a real stick is.

I also know what hooey is.

Tough talk is fine, but there's no stick for Myanmar.

Maybe you finally understand my sarcastic retort. You might as well send real sticks for all it matters. THAT was the point.

Fast Eddie Lives!

At the United Nations, U Nyan Win, Myanmar’s foreign minister, accused “neocolonialists” and “political opportunists” of exploiting “protests by a small group of Buddhist clergy” to undermine his country.

In a speech to the General Assembly Monday evening, he said: “Secondly, they impose sanctions which hinder economic development. Economic sanctions are counterproductive.”

He said security forces had used “utmost restraint” in calming the demonstrators, who then ignored their warnings. “They had to take action to restore the situation,” he said. “Normalcy has now returned to Myanmar.”

He concluded: “The international community can best help Myanmar by showing greater understanding. They can begin by refraining from measures which would result in adding fuel to the fire.”

When the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, dispatched Mr. Gambari on Wednesday, the Security Council issued a statement that “urged restraint” by the government and “underlined the importance that Mr. Gambari be received by the authorities of Myanmar as soon as possible.”

Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbors also said it was urgent that the junta receive Mr. Gambari as a representative of international concern.

As condemnation of the junta has continued, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as Asean, have issued increasingly sharp statements, moving away from what had proved a fruitless policy of friendly persuasion.

“I would like to emphasize the importance which the Asean countries, and indeed the whole international community, attach to Mr. Gambari’s mission,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore wrote in a letter to the generals dated Saturday but released to reporters on Monday.

“We are most disturbed by reports of the violent means that the authorities in Myanmar have deployed against the demonstrators, which have resulted in injuries and deaths,” Mr. Lee wrote. Singapore currently presides over Asean; Myanmar is one of the 10 members of the group.

Besides cutting off the Internet, the authorities have attempted to shut down the flow of news by arresting and harassing local journalists.

News organizations reported that at least four Burmese journalists, including Min Zaw of the Japanese daily newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, had been arrested, and several others were presumed to have been arrested. About 10 Burmese reporters have been physically attacked or prevented from working, including reporters for Reuters and Agence France-Presse, according to Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association.

A Japanese photographer, Kenji Nagai, was shot and killed at the height of the demonstrations last week, drawing protests from the Japanese government. In Tokyo, the chief cabinet spokesman, Nobutaka Machbimura, said Japan was considering sanctions to protest the junta’s crackdown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/world/asia/02myanmar.html

No mention of China.

So its all up to the people of Myanmar. All the rest of us can do is sit and watch.

Asia's Forgotten Crisis
A New Approach to Burma
Michael Green and Derek Mitchell
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007

Summary: Over the past decade, Burma has gone from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to its neighbors' security. The international community must change its approach to the country's junta.

Michael Green is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Derek Mitchell is a Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Strategy at CSIS.

U.S. policy toward Burma is stuck. Since September 1988, the country has been run by a corrupt and repressive military junta (which renamed the country Myanmar). Soon after taking power, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), as the junta was then called, placed Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition party the National League for Democracy, under house arrest. In 1990, it allowed national elections but then ignored the National League for Democracy's landslide victory and clung to power. Then, in the mid-1990s, amid a cresting wave of post-Cold War democratization and in response to international pressure, the SLORC released Suu Kyi. At the time, there was a sense within the country and abroad that change in Burma might be possible.

But this proved to be a false promise, and the international community could not agree on what to do next. Many Western governments, legislatures, and human rights organizations advocated applying pressure through diplomatic isolation and punitive economic sanctions. Burma's neighbors, on the other hand, adopted a form of constructive engagement in the hope of enticing the SLORC to reform. The result was an uncoordinated array of often contradictory approaches. The United States limited its diplomatic contact with the SLORC and eventually imposed mandatory trade and investment restrictions on the regime. Europe became a vocal advocate for political reform. But most Asian states moved to expand trade, aid, and diplomatic engagement with the junta, most notably by granting Burma full membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997.

A decade later, the verdict is in: neither sanctions nor constructive engagement has worked. If anything, Burma has evolved from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to the security of its neighbors. But despite the mounting danger, many in the United States and the international community are still mired in the old sanctions-versus-engagement battle. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed the former Nigerian diplomat and UN official Ibrahim Gambari to continue the organization's heretofore fruitless dialogue with the junta about reform. The U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress have fought over control of U.S. Burma policy, leading to bitterness and polarization on both sides. Although the UN Security Council now does talk openly about Burma as a threat to international peace and security, China and Russia have vetoed attempts to impose international sanctions. And while key members of the international community continue to undermine one another, the junta, which renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, continues its brutal and dangerous rule.

Regimes like the SPDC do not improve with age; therefore, the Burma problem must be addressed urgently. All parties with a stake in its resolution need to adjust their positions and start coordinating their approach to the problem. Although this may seem like an unlikely proposition, it has more potential today than ever before. Burma's neighbors are beginning to recognize that unconditional engagement has failed. All that is needed now is for the United States to acknowledge that merely reinforcing its strategy of isolation and the existing sanctions regime will not achieve the desired results either. Such a reappraisal would then allow all concerned parties to build an international consensus with the dual aim of creating new incentives for the SPDC to reform and increasing the price it will pay if it fails to change its ways.

The international community needs to act now to begin a process of concentrated and coordinated engagement for the benefit of the Burmese people and of broader peace and stability in Asia. As with the six-party talks on North Korea, a multilateral approach will require some compromise by all participants. The United States will need to reconsider its restrictions on engaging the SPDC; ASEAN, China, and India will need to reevaluate their historical commitment to noninterference; Japan will need to consider whether its economics-based approach to Burma undermines its new commitment to values-based diplomacy. But all parties have good reasons to make concessions. None of them can afford to watch Burma descend further into isolation and desperation and wait to act until another generation of its people is lost. In addition to humanitarian principles, there are strategic grounds for stepping up diplomatic efforts on Burma: it is now the most serious remaining challenge to the security and unity of Southeast Asia. Of course, change will eventually come to Burma. But without the coordinated engagement of the major interested powers today, that change will come at a great cost: to the stability of Southeast Asia, to the conscience of the international community, and, most important, to the long-suffering Burmese people, who languish in the shadows as the rest of the world concentrates its energies elsewhere.

ibid
Interesting analysis and reccommendations.

Well, granted, Green and Mitchell certainly think that something ought to be done. But they're not terribly clear on what that is.

Their central thesis, as I understand it, is that there have been a variety of political approaches to Burma, from engagement as by India or China, to sanctions and isolation by the United States. None of these approaches have borne fruit in any meaningful way, and arguably, they've gotten in each others way.

They seem to be favouring an approach similar to the North Korean six party talks, and a broader consensus of countries involved with Myanmar on what to do. Okay, that's very nice. But will it produce results? The North Korean experience has been ambiguous at best, and arguably, the progress we've seen has been because 'six party' talks were abandoned for bilateral negotiations among principals. Even so, the objectives with North Korea were extremely limited, and North Korea was highly vulnerable due to its internal frailty.

Green and Mitchell argue that isolation efforts have failed to sway the junta. Direct engagement has failed to sway the junta. So what are they left to argue for? Semi-isolation? Limited engagement? Greater coordination?

It's difficult to see how variations on techniques which have failed in the past will succeed now.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see it.

Well, granted, Green and Mitchell certainly think that something ought to be done. But they're not terribly clear on what that is.

Their central thesis, as I understand it, is that there have been a variety of political approaches to Burma, from engagement as by India or China, to sanctions and isolation by the United States. None of these approaches have borne fruit in any meaningful way, and arguably, they've gotten in each others way.

They seem to be favouring an approach similar to the North Korean six party talks, and a broader consensus of countries involved with Myanmar on what to do. Okay, that's very nice. But will it produce results? The North Korean experience has been ambiguous at best, and arguably, the progress we've seen has been because 'six party' talks were abandoned for bilateral negotiations among principals. Even so, the objectives with North Korea were extremely limited, and North Korea was highly vulnerable due to its internal frailty.

Green and Mitchell argue that isolation efforts have failed to sway the junta. Direct engagement has failed to sway the junta. So what are they left to argue for? Semi-isolation? Limited engagement? Greater coordination?

It's difficult to see how variations on techniques which have failed in the past will succeed now. Green and Mitchell's most pressing call, for a greater degree of international coordination, seems doomed to founder on the rocks of political realities. Myanmar is a strategic linchpin in the region. It's neighbors cannot afford to shut it out. It can always offer a deal. Self interest of each of the parties... China, India, Thailand, Japan make it very difficult to coordinate a strategy. Worse, the United States, according to Green and Mitchell, has shut itself out of the process through a policy of isolation... how do they propose to get back into the game.

Green and Mitchell talk about Myanmar becoming a security threat to its neighbors. But this threat is never articulated. Does anyone seriously imagine Myanmar invading India or China? Or that these powers would allow it to invade Thailand? If not that, then what? Myanmar is not the center of a worldwide Islamic or Communist revolutionary movement. It is not spreading terrorism, assassinating foreign officials. It does not have millions of refugees fleeing its borders. It's not even a big heroin producer any more, not compared to Afghanistan.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see it.

Burma's neighbors are struggling to respond to the spillover effects of worsening living conditions in the country. The narcotics trade, human trafficking, and HIV/AIDS are all spreading through Southeast Asia thanks in part to Burmese drug traffickers who regularly distribute heroin with HIV-tainted needles in China, India, and Thailand. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Burma accounts for 80 percent of all heroin produced in Southeast Asia, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has drawn a direct connection between the drug routes running from Burma and the marked increase in HIV/AIDS in the border regions of neighboring countries. Perversely, the SPDC has been playing on its neighbors' concerns over the drugs, disease, and instability that Burma generates to blackmail them into providing it with political, economic, and even military assistance.

Worse, the SPDC appears to have been taking an even more threatening turn recently. Western intelligence officials have suspected for several years that the regime has had an interest in following the model of North Korea and achieving military autarky by developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Last spring, the junta normalized relations and initiated conventional weapons trade with North Korea in violation of UN sanctions against Pyongyang. And despite Burma's ample reserves of oil and gas, it signed an agreement with Russia to develop what it says will be peaceful nuclear capabilities. For these reasons, despite urgent problems elsewhere in the world, all responsible members of the international community should be concerned about the course Burma is taking.

Political liberalization in Indonesia and growing activism in Malaysia and the Philippines have also led ASEAN to redefine its mandate and apply greater pressure for change in Burma. When ASEAN was created four decades ago, its five founding states undertook not to interfere in each other's internal affairs as a way both to distance themselves from their colonial pasts and to avoid conflict in the future. But last January, ASEAN members prepared a new charter for the twenty-first century that champions democracy promotion and human rights as universal values, and they have established a human rights commission despite the SPDC's strong objections. With ASEAN's underlying principles under revision, leadership by Southeast Asian nations will become an even more essential component of any new international approach to the junta.

Japan will be another important force for reform. Tokyo and Washington perennially disagreed over their policies toward Burma in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has been a promising shift in Japan's attitude recently. Now that Tokyo has to contend with the slowdown in Japan's economic power and the rise in China's, it is articulating its foreign policy objectives and diplomacy in different terms. In November 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso made a speech promoting an "arc of freedom and prosperity" from the Baltics to the Pacific and touting Tokyo's commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. His speech conspicuously omitted any mention of Burma, but there is no question that Japan's Burma policy has been shifting significantly. In September 2006, Tokyo finally agreed to support a discussion on Burma in the UN Security Council. Members of the Diet have created the Association for the Promotion of Values-Based Diplomacy, which seeks to infuse Japanese foreign policy in Asia with a renewed emphasis on promoting democracy. And last May, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi joined 43 other former heads of state in an open letter calling on the SPDC to unconditionally release Suu Kyi.

Securing Japan's cooperation will be especially important. The Burmese people generally have a positive memory of Japan's assistance in helping the country throw off British colonial rule in the 1940s. Both the junta and the democratic opposition see opportunities for Japanese aid to help rebuild the country (although they disagree on the conditions under which that aid would be welcome). Furthermore, Burma presents a unique opportunity for Japan to demonstrate its bona fides on promoting democracy, protecting human rights, and advancing regional security -- especially at a time when the rhetoric and policies of China, the other Asian giant, continue to focus on outdated mercantilist principles.

UNHEALTHY COMPETITION

If ASEAN and Japan are critical components of any international approach to Burma, China and India could be the greatest obstacles to efforts to induce reform in the country. China has many interests in Burma. Over the past 15 years, it has developed deep political and economic relations with Burma, largely through billions of dollars in trade and investment and more than a billion dollars' worth of weapons sales. It enjoys important military benefits, including access to ports and listening posts, which allow its armed forces to monitor naval and other military activities around the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea. To feed its insatiable appetite for energy, it also seeks preferential deals for access to Burma's oil and gas reserves.

Beijing's engagement with the SPDC has been essential to the regime's survival. China has provided it with moral and financial support -- including funds and materiel to pay off Burmese military elites -- thus increasing its leverage at home and abroad. By throwing China's weight behind the SPDC, Beijing has complicated the strategic calculations of those of Burma's neighbors that are concerned about the direction the country is moving in, thus enabling the junta to pursue a classic divide-and-conquer approach.

In its own defense, China continues to assert its fealty to the principle of noninterference. In early 2007, China and Russia cast their first joint veto in the UN Security Council in 35 years to block a measure that would have sanctioned the SPDC. The move was consistent with both states' historical objections to any attempts by the Security Council to sanction a country for human rights violations. It also aligned with Beijing's overall strategic goals of the past few years: to secure the resources, markets, and investment destinations to fuel China's remarkable economic development; to shun risky international moves that might destabilize its neighborhood and distract the Chinese leadership from urgent domestic challenges; and to promote noninterference as an alternative model for international diplomacy -- all interests that will make it difficult to induce China to change its Burma policy.

But China's position could shift, particularly as Beijing considers its longer-term interests. China, like many other states on Burma's border, must be concerned about the effects of its neighbor's tortured development on its own security. In fact, Chinese officials in Beijing and the governor of Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, are reported to have been putting pressure on the SPDC to reform and urgently address drug trafficking and health issues. This quiet shift could track the recent change in Beijing's approach to another wayward neighbor: North Korea. As soon as Beijing realized that being hands-off did not prevent Pyongyang from testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles over its objections -- thus damaging China's reputation and threatening its security -- it agreed to UN Security Council sanctions to try to bring Pyongyang under control. The same could happen with Burma, and all the more readily because it occupies a less strategic position for China than does North Korea (China's northeastern border has historically been an area of strategic vulnerability and competition).

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.

--Ghandi

Allow me to elaborate on a thought or two.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Burma accounts for 80 percent of all heroin produced in Southeast Asia, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has drawn a direct connection between the drug routes running from Burma and the marked increase in HIV/AIDS in the border regions of neighboring countries. Perversely, the SPDC has been playing on its neighbors' concerns over the drugs, disease, and instability that Burma generates to blackmail them into providing it with political, economic, and even military assistance.

Worse, the SPDC appears to have been taking an even more threatening turn recently. Western intelligence officials have suspected for several years that the regime has had an interest in following the model of North Korea and achieving military autarky by developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Last spring, the junta normalized relations and initiated conventional weapons trade with North Korea in violation of UN sanctions against Pyongyang. And despite Burma's ample reserves of oil and gas, it signed an agreement with Russia to develop what it says will be peaceful nuclear capabilities.

In November 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso made a speech promoting an "arc of freedom and prosperity" from the Baltics to the Pacific and touting Tokyo's commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. His speech conspicuously omitted any mention of Burma, but there is no question that Japan's Burma policy has been shifting significantly.

The Burmese people generally have a positive memory of Japan's assistance in helping the country throw off British colonial rule in the 1940s.

Furthermore, Burma presents a unique opportunity for Japan to demonstrate its bona fides on promoting democracy, protecting human rights, and advancing regional security -- especially at a time when the rhetoric and policies of China, the other Asian giant, continue to focus on outdated mercantilist principles.

China and India could be the greatest obstacles to efforts to induce reform in the country. China has many interests in Burma. Over the past 15 years, it has developed deep political and economic relations with Burma, largely through billions of dollars in trade and investment and more than a billion dollars' worth of weapons sales. It enjoys important military benefits, including access to ports and listening posts, which allow its armed forces to monitor naval and other military activities around the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea. To feed its insatiable appetite for energy, it also seeks preferential deals for access to Burma's oil and gas reserves.

In early 2007, China and Russia cast their first joint veto in the UN Security Council in 35 years to block a measure that would have sanctioned the SPDC. .... It also aligned with Beijing's overall strategic goals of the past few years: to secure the resources, markets, and investment destinations to fuel China's remarkable economic development; to shun risky international moves that might destabilize its neighborhood and distract the Chinese leadership from urgent domestic challenges; and to promote noninterference as an alternative model for international diplomacy -- all interests that will make it difficult to induce China to change its Burma policy.

But China's position could shift...

China, like many other states on Burma's border, must be concerned about the effects of its neighbor's tortured development on its own security.

In fact, Chinese officials in Beijing and the governor of Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, are reported to have been putting pressure on the SPDC to reform and urgently address drug trafficking and health issues.

This quiet shift....

This quiet shift could track the recent change in Beijing's approach to another wayward neighbor: North Korea.

.... The same could happen with Burma,

and all the more readily because it occupies a less strategic position for China than does North Korea (China's northeastern border has historically been an area of strategic vulnerability and competition).

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/art...ians/?page=full

It's possible that the Burmese regime's isolation will start to undermine its ability to rule. In the past, some degree of openness probably allowed the Burmese regime to anticipate and forestall protests. Now, isolated in its jungle capital, the government may not have anticipated the impact of fuel increases on average people. The Burmese generals also may not have understood how growing military patronage for Burma's Buddhist clergy, by building pagodas and supporting monasteries, infuriated many monks.

The generals made this mistake once before. In 1987 and 1988, when the military was ruled by Ne Win, another unpredictable dictator with a cult-like approach to governance, the regime suddenly declared certain currency notes worthless. (Ne Win also allegedly consulted astrologers before making major policy decisions.) This bizarre move sparked demonstrations in 1988 that drew millions of Burmese, ultimately triggering a harsh crackdown by the regime.

But that took place during the Cold War, and before the Internet and the rise of global nongovernmental organizations. In 1988, stories and photos from the Burma uprising took time to make their way into the foreign media, but today photos of the protests appear on foreign websites about Burma the same day. In 1988, repressive governments ruled much of Asia, so it was not surprising when few regional leaders stood up for the battered Burmese people. In 1988, the United States remained locked in a titanic struggle with the totalitarian Soviet Union, and all other conflicts took a lower priority.

Today, the situation is vastly different. Democracy has taken root in Asia, the Cold War is a relic, and the United States has committed itself to global democratization. Inside Burma, Than Shwe is attempting to turn back the clock, seemingly an impossible task.

But if Than Shwe stays in power, unchallenged by neighbors who covet Burma's resources and unperturbed by a UN that refuses to sanction him, he may be able to extend his control of society. If so, he will show he is no anachronism - and provide an example to other tyrants still standing.