Sleepycatz

Sadness for Burma

The Daily Mail is reporting today that thousands have been massacred in Burma over the weekend, and that there is little hope left for the Burmese people. The repressive regime has deployed over 20,000 troops in Rangoon and has been performing mass arrests and killings, dumping the bodies in the jungle. Ko Htike has been blogging about he detention camps set up in the Yangon Institute of Technology and General Institute of Technology and the appalling brutality met out to the peaceful Buddhist monks.

A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. “The Burma revolt is over,” she added.

“The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

“Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear.”

I hope that this is not the case; that the Burmese people still have some hope of removing their despotic government. But I am also saddened by my knowledge of political realities. With the unfettered support of China, the Burmese government will continue to exercise its reign of rape, brutality, and executions.

In reading the coverage today, I was struck by how many European readers commented on the lack of American intervention. The frustrations in their comments pointed again to American hypocrisy: “Americans call for Democratic reforms, but won’t do anything about it.” In some sense they are correct, but America is a paper tiger in Asia. We have no military left — it has been squandered in Iraq. We have no economic leverage left –it has been purchased by the Chinese. We have no diplomatic force remaining — it was abandoned in the case for WMDs and broken on the shores of Guantanamo.

There are times which i wish I did believe in God. At least then I could prey for the people of Burma, and hope some divine power would intervene and stop their suffering. Sadly, I know this will not happen.

This entry was posted by steve on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Injustices, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.