The Never-Ending Myanmar Nightmare

The ruling military junta in Burma does not care what the world thinks about its rule. Though the junta pays no heed to outside pressure, some neighbors are intent on fostering relations or at least paying the government for permission to tap into its rich natural gas resources. While the Western countries largely shun the military regime, China and India stand ready to pay up to $17 billion over to the rogue government, which renamed the country Myanmar, over the next two decades. That money will fund, not education or health programs, warns David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch, but military control and repression. Since the military junta took control of the country in 1988, cracking down particularly on ethnic groups, a flood of refugees have fled to Thailand. The UN Security Council voted to put the issue of Myanmar on its permanent agenda, and aid groups operating along the border hope that respite will come at last to the hundreds of thousands fleeing the brutality of their government. – YaleGlobal