A Relief From Evil In Myanmar

One month and seven days ago, the Myanmar cyclone hit shore, permanently freeing 78,000 souls from their miserable existence under the ruling hounds of Hell junta. Finally, this weekend:

United Nations helicopters fanned out across Myanmar's devastated Irrawaddy delta for the first time Monday, ferrying critical supplies to villages that have been struggling to survive since the May 2-3 cyclone, an official said. ...

Until now, the U.N. had one helicopter operating in Myanmar that flew a total of six trips last week, [U.N. spokesperson Paul] Risley said. Supplies were mainly being delivered by boats that took several hours to navigate short distances in the delta's network of waterways. "Today was the first day where you really saw a multiplier effect," he said, adding that the helicopters reached four remote villages Monday morning. "These are areas that clearly have not received regular supplies of food or other relief assistance."

Just a note to those who refer to Bush as Hitler: There are real evils in this world, including horrific, powerful people who do actually put their power and interests above the very lives of others. None of these people -- not a one -- live at 1600 Pennsylvania Blvd.

Why Myanmar Seized The Aid Shipments

Unbelievably, an election is going on today in Myanmar, cyclone or no cyclone, 100,000 dead or no 100,000 dead, to endorse a new constitution that will give the Hounds of Hell, aka the junta, even more power, control and wealth.

So we know why the junta seized much-needed aid shipments on the eve of the election:

Myanmar's military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week's devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise. (AP)

Message to America's whacked out Left, including Obama's pastor: When the water bottles arrived in New Orleans, they did not have George Bush's face plastered on them.

Myanmar Junta: Eviler And Eviler

The Left, which stumbles over the simple concept of good and evil, as exemplified in their thoughts about George Bush, will have some trouble processing this:

The U.N. World food Program has suspended aid shipments to Myanmar after the country's military government seized all the food and equipment that had been flown into the country for cyclone victims.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said Friday that all "the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." The shipment included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits. He said the WFP "has no choice" but to suspend further aid shipments until the matter is resolved.

Mr. Risley said it isn't clear why the material was seized. It also wasn't clear if the shipment seized was the one that was flown in Thursday or another one.

Earlier, the U.N. blasted Myanmar's military government, saying its refusal to let in foreign aid workers to help victims of a devastating cyclone was "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work, as the organization said it is putting together an urgent funding appeal to help victims. (WSJ)

The Left has convinced itself that evil (although it doesn't use the word, preferring "racism") was at work in Bush's response to Katrina. But that was just multi-tiered government incompetence. The Myanmar junta -- now that is evil personified. Will the Left get it?

One diarist at Kos, a guy who fled Myanmar 14 years ago, did have something interesting to say (although I don't know why someone who fled to freedom would be hanging out at Kos):

As a Burmese being in the States for 14 years, I believe I have a better understanding of what is happening. As is the case of 2005 tsunami, the military government is extremely weary of outsiders, regardless of the purpose of the visit. It (the ruthless regime machine) is also afraid of any single reporter that would return home and plaster a couple of pictures on the front page of Newsweek or Time magazine.

In short, if you are thinking about donating, the traditional way of giving might be slow and less effective. The last time I check the news, the UN aid is still blocked or being hindered and so is the case for a lot of other "western" countries and agencies. The reason is the junta is going to try to wrestle control of all the aid materials saying it will hand everything out: in the news about it already. But, what will happen after everybody leaves is that all the generals and military personnels will grab a significant portion of the aid and the victims will end up with a tiny percentage of the aid, if at all. If you have seen the initial food distribution scene of Black Hawk Down, it's kind of like that.

He goes on to promote his wife's charity, if you're interested. World Vision is probably be a better bet.

Sunday Scan

The OCRegister editorial page leads off today's scan with its editorial giving a cool reception to Al Gore's ignoble Nobel:

"Nearly every significant statement that Vice President Gore makes regarding climate science and climate policy is either one-sided, misleading, exaggerated, speculative or wrong," says CEI environmental policy expert Marlo Lewis. Otherwise, nice job Mr. Gore.

Global warming alarmism serves those opposing free-market economics and its fossil-fuel reliance and those seeking power and profit by gaming the system once they force rule changes. Neither motive is in most peoples' interests. The Kyoto Protocol, which would force nations to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, if enforced would reduce projected temperatures about one degree over 100 years while – and this is not exaggeration – dampening and devastating economies worldwide.

Gore got a much warmer reception in Palo Alto, where young and old alike believe his hype, says an also hyped up Merc News:

Mackenzie Pope, 12, ... was one of several kids who had the day off from school [what?!] and showed up with signs saying [to Gore] "Welcome to Palo Alto."

"I was walking my dog when I saw all the people here and so I went home to get them," she said, motioning to her mom, little sisters Bailey and Rylie, and a couple of friends. [Mackenzie, Bailey and Rylie -- how cloyingly No. Cal.]

The girls, like typical Palo Alto kids, were well-versed on the climate-change issue.

"They say in 20 years New York City is going to be half gone," said Mackenzie's friend, Charlotte Barry.

The alliance is a small organization Gore founded last year as a fundraising arm for his media campaign. Its office, at Hawthorne Avenue and High Street, once housed the Foundation for a Global Community, a descendant of Beyond War. And it's next door to POST, the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

"This spot has good karma," said POST Executive Director Audrey Rust. "We're sort of at ground zero, right here on High Street."

The Merc News, which is after all a news paper, somehow didn't feel compelled to correct little Charlotte's gorism.

Babs At The Money Trough

Wrapping up news from the Golden State, the LATimes reports that Bay Area Greenie Babs Boxer is swimming in dough from the very hooligans against The Sacred Earth Mother she has worked so hard to harm:

For years Barbara Boxer has campaigned, first for Congress, then for the U.S. Senate, as a progressive Democrat strong on ... the environment. ...

But now that she's chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, she's finding some new people who want to be her friend. And not in the MySpace kind of way.

Roll Call reports (sorry, it's a subscriber-access page) that Boxer, who assumed the committee chair with the 2006 Democratic takeover of the Senate, received through Aug. 30 about $41,000 from political action committees representing "energy, natural resources, construction and transportation industries."

But in the 2004 cycle, when she was last up for re-election, Boxer "reported $18,500 in total receipts from the energy and natural resources sector in all of 2003 and 2004, according to CQ MoneyLine ....

Politicians. Love 'em or hate 'em, you gotta pay 'em off.

Don't Worry About Islam

There's a complicated piece by Simon Jenkins in the Times of London spurred by the 29-page letter to the Pope from 138 imams and other Muslim high and mighty. Jenkins doesn't see Islam as the biggest threat to the West, rather:

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation. Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it.

It's easy to discount this out of hand because Jenkins slices too thin. Our fear isn't of the tiny groups of jihadists ... it's the consequences of even five or ten percent of Islam picking up the jihadist terror tool kit. Still, the piece isn't just liberal pap and multi-culti over-optimism. There's a lot of food for thought there, like:

It is ironic that defeat in the cold war should have led Russia to the exuberant self-confidence of Vladimir Putin’s Moscow, while victory has plunged the West into a loss of nerve. In both Washington and London are leaders who have so little confidence in democracy as to regard it as vulnerable to a few madmen, and who have so little respect for democracy’s freedoms as to suspend them at the bang of a bomb.

I believe the liberties that have been suspended have been carefully defined and limited so as to protect Americans and subject suspicious foreigners and battlefield enemies to the treatment that is needed and deserved. But how about this for a Sunday pondering: What if we fought the war on terror the way the Libs would have us fight it? Would we not still win?

Of course, to answer that, you also have to answer this: Would the extra American dead that might result from the Lib approach be worth the rigorous, hard-line protection of each letter of the Constitution, as applied by Lib judges?

Watch It, Canadians!

Canadian readers, watch out! Science Daily tells us that according to the journal Environmental Research, you might be one of the 25,000 Canadians pollution will kill this year! I love these studies that pore over medical records and death certificates and attempt to lay the blame at pollution, or global warming, or fast food, or whatever else the Lib media have their eyepieces focused on.

Here's the picture that accompanies the story. I kid you not. Look at that awful, life-nipping gunk! The caption reads:

Photo taken near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Industry in the foreground, pristine mountains in the background -- Canada is not immune to environmental problems. (Credit: Michele Hogan)

Help me find the industries in the photo that are cavalierly ignoring Canada's environmental laws and spewing toxins into drinking water and mother's milk. More easily, help me find manipulated statistics that look at cancer deaths and low birth-weight babies (as this one did) and attribute them to pollution instead of, oh, the luck of the draw or genetics or moms who smoke and booze.

Corn Fission?

Earlier in the week, Syrian flacks toured media hacks around an ag field and ag lab that they say were targeted by Israeli fighters ... why the Zionists would do that, who knows? After reporting the tour with almost a completely straight face, today the NYT joins those who understand what really was going on there:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel's air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state.

Central mystery? Not to everyone.

Who Defines 'Dying Well?'

Charlotte Allen, faced with minor breast cancer surgery -- seemingly an oxymoron, but not really -- was asked on three separate occasions whether she had a living will. A complicated form was stuffed into her mitt, asking her to ponder "a range of conditions under which I might like to have a Do Not Resuscitate order hung over my hospital bed, whether I would want to be denied "artificial" food and water under some circumstances, what I thought about being taken off a ventilator, and so forth."

Her conclusion, as very well relayed in her WaPo piece today:

In fact, when I contemplate the concept of "dying well," I can't avoid the uneasy feeling that it actually means "dying when we, the intellectual elite, think it is appropriate for you to die." Consider what's happened in recent years: The classic Hippocratic Oath and its prohibition against physicians giving people a "deadly drug" has collapsed with the growing acceptance of such notions as physician-assisted suicide, the "right to die," and even giving some very sick, disabled or demented people a little push over the edge, as seems to be the case in the Netherlands. People facing end-of-life decisions may well feel subtle pressure from the medical and bioethical establishments to make the choice that will save the most money, as well as spare their relatives and society at large the burden of their continued existence.

As the SCHIP plan catches the news and the Dems vow to override a prez veto, do you recall ever seeing someone raise the question of whether parents would be pressured to quickly dispatch sick babies once the feds start paying for their costly health care? Neither did I.

Start thinking about it.

Road to Rangoon

No, it's not a long-lost Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movie; it's the UN's continuing dismal performance in its attempts to stop the Burmese junta from killing off every monk and protester in that poor country.

In this case, the road will lead UN chief Burma dude Ibrahim Gambari to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Japan, before "hoping" to return to Burma. Condi's response? Knock it off! Get back to Burma pronto and do something.

Good advice.

U.N. Uselessness, Case #1,798,433

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. special envoy, spent several days in Burma this week, leaving yesterday after meeting with the power-hungry, repressive @#$!%s generals who exploit the country and opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Even before the conrails of Gambari's departing jet could blur into the muggy south Asia skies, the utter ineffectiveness of the U.N. became evident to all:

At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown [Rangoon], the former Burma's biggest city and center of last week's monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.

In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in the devoutly Buddhist country and starting point for the rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken, she said.

"They warned us not to run away as they might be back," she said after people from rows of shop houses were ordered onto the street in the middle of the night and many taken away. (Reuters)

Meanwhile, the NYT piles on with more news of U.N. ineffectiveness contrasting sharply with the brutal effectiveness of the Rangoon regime:

A local staff member of the United Nations in Myanmar and three of her family members were taken from their home in Yangon before dawn today as part of an ongoing crackdown on demonstrators.

Charles Petrie, the most senior official for the United Nations in the country, said a 38-year-old woman, her husband and two relatives were detained by security personnel at 4 a.m. He said he was not releasing their names to avoid jeopardizing their return.

The U.N. worker’s arrest is one of an unknown number of nighttime abductions conducted by the junta to identify and round up people who took part in the demonstrations, which were the largest protests against the junta in nearly two decades.

While reports of deaths and detentions running into the thousands are common and held to by most Western nations, the Junta has apparently hired Baghdad Bob as it spokesperson, saying only 10 people were killed in the protest, and figures to the contrary are "a skyful of lies."

And speaking of a skyful of lies, the nights in Rangoon are full of, if not lies, shouts of intimidation. Reports say that helicopters fly through the dark skies blasting out of loudspeakers: "We have your photos. We are making arrests."

Arrests do follow, as doors are bashed down in the dark and people hauled away to compound the fear and intimidation that keeps the Junta in power.

The U.N. is powerless against such rogue nations, and yet the world continues to turn to it in the hope it will somehow be effective this one time. But it is no more effective in Burma than it is in Darfur.

In every science fiction movie, the empire is repressive and has troops ready, like Roman legions, to crush a rebellion wherever it happens. Why can't we flip the model, and have legions of pro-democracy troops that will storm any nation that acts like Burma and hang the @#$%! by their fingernails until the raucous celebrations of newly-granted freedom die down?

Isn't that a better model than the U.N.?

Burmese Junta Kills Thousands To Stay In Power

The short-lived Saffron Revolution may be over in Burma, the Daily Mail (UK) reports:

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand. ...

The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: "I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

"They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this."

If Win's charges are true, the thousands of dead speak very little of the Junta's real power. It is very, very easy to kill pacifistic Buddhist monks. It is very, very easy to kill crowds of thousands armed with nothing more than signs and slogans. It is much harder to justify your continued power after you've done such things, however. Still, the forcefulness of the Junta's reaction to peaceful public protest means that they've probably succeeded in crushing this revolt and holding onto power -- unless the Burmese people are braver and more tenacious than most.

The last few years have made me wary of positive thoughts about the public's ability to wrest freedom from repressors without the force of the U.S. military behind their efforts. When we are not there, as in Lebanon, the despots' grip is tenacious, and the Daily Mail story makes it clear that that's the case in Burma:

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

Let's hear it for the peaceful force of secularism!

Meanwhile, the UN's envoy has been shuttling around the country, talking, and proving just how cheap talk is.

Update: Satellite imagery shows just how devastating the reaction to the revolution has been.

Bad Timing For Burma's Junta

Do Burmese Buddhist monks know that world leaders converge on New York in late September for the General Assembly?

Possibly, possibly ...

Since all the highest leaders of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are in New York for the General Assembly this week, it proved much easier for them to get together to discuss the latest attrocities -- five dead yesterday, eight today -- perpetrated upon their people by the commie-leaning megalomaniacs in Rangoon.

So, was it just higher fuel prices that got the monks and the people fired up ... or did they opportunely take advantage of General Assembly's sidebar dynamics to ratchet up the pressure on the wretched generals? Whatever, this is what the got:

The foreign ministers, who met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session, said in a statement issued after the meeting that they were "appalled to receive reports of automatic weapons being used and demanded that the Myanmar government immediately desist from the use of violence against demonstrators."

"They expressed their revulsion to Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win over reports that the demonstrations in Myanmar are being suppressed by violent force and that there has been a number of fatalities," the statement said.

They called on Myanmar to "exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution" and "resume its efforts at national reconciliation with all parties concerned, and work towards a peaceful transition to democracy," the statement said. (Breitbart/AP)

In news related to the whole idea that foreign leaders are in the states, we learn:

• President Bush called China's foreign minister Yang Jiechi into the oval office when Yang was visiting the National Security Advisor and reminded him that with the Olympics coming up, China might want to take reign in its puppets in Burma.

• Condoleezza Rice rallied the Association of South East Asian Nations in New York at a hastily called meeting which reportedly ended when Rice got a bit undiplomatically confrontational with the Burmese delegation.

Yesterday, China blocked a Security Council move to condemn the Burmese junta for its actions, but today a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Beijing is “extremely concerned about the situation.” That's quite a toughening of the ol' rhetoric -- made possible in part by the escalating violence, but also by the escalating dialog facilitated by the timing of this latest cry for freedom.

Smart monks, I'd say.

Hope, And Hope Delayed

Yesterday at the U.N., President Bush reminded that fallen body that it once stood for freedom and human rights, and it should again. He focused on countries that have taken steps toward freedom, and those that continue in darkness, including Myanmar ... er, Burma.

Bush used "Burma", and the CIA World Fact Book tells us:

... since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw

Good enough for me (although not the UN or the MSM, which use Myanmar). Here's what Bush had to say about Burma:

Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear. Basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship are severely restricted. Ethnic minorities are persecuted. Forced child labor, human trafficking, and rape are common. The regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners -- including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party was elected overwhelmingly by the Burmese people in 1990.

The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people's desire for freedom is unmistakable. This morning, I'm announcing a series of steps to help bring peaceful change to Burma. The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members. We'll continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma. And I urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom.

It is obvious that it'll take more than mere words to force Burma out of the grip of the Socialist junta that rules it, as the Chinese-supported regime paid no heed and moved virtually as Bush spoke to try to crush the latest popular uprising there:

YANGON, Myanmar - Security forces shot and wounded three people, and beat and dragged away dozens of Buddhist monks Wednesday in the most violent crackdown against the protests that began last month, witnesses said. About 300 monks and activists were arrested, dissidents said.

Reports from exiled Myanmar journalists and activists in Thailand said security forces had shot and killed as many as five people in Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon [Rangoon]. The reports could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press.

Witnesses in Yangon known to the AP said they had seen two women and one young man with gunshot wounds in the chaotic confrontations.

Zin Linn, information minister for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Myanmar's self-styled government-in-exile, said at least five monks were killed, while an organization of exiled political activists in Thailand, the National League for Democracy-Liberated Area said three monks had been confirmed dead, and about 17 wounded.

It seems like beating Buddhist monks is not a good strategy for gaining popular support in a nation where nearly 90 percent of the people are Buddhist. Of course, it would also seem that refusing to relinquish power after a popular election, as the junta did in 1990 after Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in a popular election.

So, how about an International League for Democracy to snuff out the brutes that are denying a nation its freedom? Bush reminded the U.N. that in theory we have such an organization headquartered in NYC, but that the theory and the practice have become woefully disjointed.

President Bush concluded his speech:

With the commitment and courage of this chamber, we can build a world where people are free to speak, assemble, and worship as they wish; a world where children in every nation grow up healthy, get a decent education, and look to the future with hope; a world where opportunity crosses every border. America will lead toward this vision where all are created equal, and free to pursue their dreams. This is the founding conviction of my country. It is the promise that established this body. And with our determination, it can be the future of our world.

Inspiring words to some, but let's face it: They're threatening words to a significant number of the world leaders who sat before him, whose sheer numbers drive the U.N., whose influence is too strong for the likes of Ban-ki Moon to stand up to.

"Lost In The Mail"

President Bush is warming up his pipes for his U.N. speech as I write this and I'll be in my weekly meeting with a bunch of church guys when he gives it, but I like the leak on the speech's topic: No new spotlight for the crackpot despot handpuppet from Tehran, but instead a bright, glaring light on the UN's failure to live up to its charter's ideals of human rights and freedom.

Bush reportedly will focus on Myanmar, where 100,000 protested this week in a cry for freedom, and where the UN has done absolutely nothing to put a ray of hope behind that cry. Instead, the UN turns the other way as the power-hungry cabal that oppresses an entire nation, murders its Christian minority, supports the nation's opium-growing drug lords ... and gets a helping hand in keeping the whole, sick mess from collapsing from China.

Amidst this horror, the UN straight-facedly tells us that the poverty rate in Myanmar is just two percent, and presents data on the nation's health in deaths per thousand while admitting it doesn't even know what the nation's population is.

There is not even a place in the UN's "Country at a Glance" window that addresses human rights.

Why bother? What difference would it make to the thieves, liars, rapists and torturers who sit with Myanmar in the General Assembly?

Meanwhile, at the White House, planning goes on for the President's reception for world leaders this evening. Not invited: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

When asked what happened to Ahmadinejad's invitation, Dana Perrino told AP:

"Lost in the mail."

Now if we could just entrust Ahmadinejad to the US Postal Service ....

A Darfur In Myanmar

"I have never seen peace. My life was an unending disaster, a life of torture and hunger. We were just slaves. Do you understand? We are damned."

That's Tha Lei Paw, a 32-year-old Burmese woman describing her former life, before she fled Myanmar for the relative safety of a refugee camp in Thailand.

Calling the situation in Myanmar a Darfur is not a stretch; the only thing that's different is the murdering genocidal maniacs are Buddhists. The victims in both genocides are Christians.

Myanmar's Christian Karen tribe represents approximately seven percent of the population. The Bhuddist Burman tribe makes up 70 percent of the population and 100 percent of the national power base.

Spiegel gives us the background lesson:

When the Union of Burma, a former British colony, gained its independence in 1948 it was Southeast Asia's wealthiest country. The government in the capital Rangoon awarded the country's dozens of minorities -- like the Shan, Kachin, Rohanis and Karen -- autonomous status. Some were even given the right to leave the federation after 10 years, a promise that was quickly forgotten.

Burma's democratic institutions quickly crumbled, leaving a group of kleptomaniac generals in charge. They plundered the country's natural resources, including teakwood, precious stones, oil and natural gas. Their opponents, dozens of small guerilla armies, soon began waging a losing war to gain self-determination for their ethnic groups.

The army of the Shan State in the northeast Myanmar's Golden Triangle region was led by Khun Sa, a drug baron sought by international authorities. The Wa Army of former headhunters was under the command of the Pao brothers, two former Red Guards who had fled China after the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. As far back as 1950, the Karen rebels went into hiding in the jungle in response to countrywide massacres perpetrated against their ethnic minority. Human rights organizations estimate that Myanmar's ethnic conflicts have claimed more than 600,000 human lives since independence.

Since that 600,000 equates to just under 10,000 a year, I'm guessing the estimate is low and the kleptomaniac generals, drug-dealing war lords and jungle-dwelling Commies have actually killed far more innocents.

The government, not unlike the government in Khartoum, says it's not their fault, it's the Karens' fault for mounting an armed opposition to the suppression and abuse of the Burmans. But the rape, murder and forced slavery imposed by the Burmans goes far beyond mere suppression of an uprising.

The UN, as usual, is way on top of the situation, focusing not on the genocide, but on the regimes repression of recent demonstrations against hiked-up gas prices. Sez the UN's special envoy on Myanmar matters:

“[The Myanmar government is] all the more disappointing as they not only have the effect of calling into question the stated commitment to democratization and national reconciliation by the authorities, but also make it more difficult to maintain support, international support, for engagement with Myanmar at a time when we believe strongly that the country needs international assistance in addressing the many pressing challenges, from political and human rights issues to humanitarian and socio-economic problems.”

As long as the UN takes genocidal militarists at their word and thinks there's any legitimacy to their "commitment to democratization," it will get nowhere, and the Christians of Karen will continue to suffer.