Will Anyone Help?

I really wish I could share Phil's optimism on the situation in Burma (see the comments to Crimescene 9:10 am), but it's all looking very bleak. Yes, China is urging restraint, but only because they want stability (not democracy), so that their trade and energy aspirations etc. can continue unaffected. They really couldn't care less whether there is a Junta in power or not, but given that it guarantees the current trade model, and the stability of those oil and gas sources, they prefer the status quo. On the positive side, they don't want to look bad to the world with the Olympics looming. At the end of the day though, China can handle losing face; they don't have to answer to anyone. (Personally, I don't see them as having any face to lose). And what of India? Or Thailand? Or the Koreas? No, money talks, and as is the case in Laos and Cambodia (and for that matter China), as long as it is speaking, the people will not be heard.

Forget about their neighbours and forget about the West. The harsh fact is that the only people who can help the Burmese people are the Burmese people. Given that the Government have done the unthinkable and tackled the monks, the people may very well be incensed enough to really rise up and win. There are protests apparently springing up all around the country. But in the face of a military with no one to answer to? Unless the military itself, and by that I mean the rank and file soldier, mutinies, the people don't have a chance. And those soldiers are soldiers because they have bought into the Junta view of the world. I hate to be pessimistic, but I am. No one will be happier than me if the Junta topples. But I doubt it will.

And did everyone notice that little cracker slipped into the news reports about Russia selling the Burmese a nuclear reactor? All that hullabaloo about North Korea and Iran, but no one gives an atom's nucleus about a a gang of fascistic thugs getting their hands on nuclear weaponry. So they haven't threatened any neighbouring states lately. Well, zippedy dooda! They don't need to, but that doesn't mean they won't have to, or that they won't start. As if they didn't have a big enough stick already (supplied handily enough by China etc.).