Burma: Soon to be forgotten?

The UN special envoy to Burma has finnaly left Burma after meeting the military leadership, the opposition leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi. In fact he has met pretty much everyone....except the monks. I haven't seen any reports of him meeting with representatives of the monks themselves to give them support or to learn how they are being treated by the regime in the wake of the protests. After all, these were the men who literally put there lives on the line to make their voices heard.

Now we hear that up to 4000 monks have been imprisoned by the Junta, it is clear that the Junta has won again, as it did in 1990. The bottom line is that peaceful protest by monks alone was never going to topple the Burmese regime. The world has not brought sufficient pressure to bare on them, particularly the Chinese who have the most influence.

The remaining monks will be too afraid to gather in large numbers and I fear that soon the world will forget about the events of the past few weeks and move on.

Y0u can't fight an army with words and voices, as the monks are now learning. Having been put down twice it is hard to see them rallying a third time, so for Burmese at least the future looks bleak.