Supressing protests in Burma

Supporters of Burma's military junta have broken up protests against the doubling of fuel prices.

Burma, like North Korea, looks one of the most awkward countries in Asia Pacific. Its military leaders have no regard for democratic process as they have turned the country to a military base where all the citizens are to obey orders and not to discuss them. This is the drawback of the military being exclusively in power as the civilian power looks a threat to their prestige. The top high ranking military leaders must find it beneath them to keep to their barracks while democratically elected institutions are running the country.

International sanctions, apart from isolating Burma, have done little to put pressure on the military for whom that was a driving cause to keep their grip on power. It seems they are the only ones benefiting from Burma’s income – legal or illegal. Their monopoly of the trade of the country's good goods like eak, pulses and beans, prawns, fish, rice, opiates and bad goods like heroin is making them richer, allowing them to build a new capital Nay Pyi Taw despite economic hardship.

The suffering of the Burmese is also the responsibility of the countries, like India, supporting Burma military by selling them weapons . These are going mainly to be used to suppress any civilian uprising in demand for improved living and respect of human rights.

The Burmese military have little to fear from being toppled by a foreign force. They have no nuclear weapons. They don’t support terrorism. As such they have problem just with their people, not with the international community. It doesn’t mind if the Burmese are a nation of slaves to their military masters and Burma's most prominent dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is kept in a cage.