Burma: Continuing Tragedy

Although the protests appear to be over, the news continues to be bad. First, it's hard to believe that the military junta's statement that it intends to move over 4,000 monks to prisons in the north (BBC) doesn't actually mean that it intends to move the monks north so it can murder them and bury them in mass graves out from under the watchful eyes of the Western media; let's be clear, these people have committed mass murders in the past, and 4,000 monks is less than a blip on their radar. Second, when the UN sent an envoy to talk to the leaders of the junta, they first made him attend "a seminar in the far northern Shan state on EU relations with Southeast Asia" (NPR). Third, the junta has begun abducting people (including UN staff) at night (NY Times); while some have been released, that's no guarantee of safety for anyone else.

The thing is, no one in the neighborhood seems to be concerned with doing anything about it, and the US has tied itself down in Iraq too deep to be of any real consequence. For those of you who think it might do some good, here's a link to the US Campaign for Burma website; I don't know that threatening to boycot the Beijing Olympics is going to have the effect they think it's going to have, but I understand their passion and their desire to do something about the situation.

Just please, please keep Burma in your thoughts.