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Country the world forgot

This even after the UN had sent its special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, to Yangon in an attempt to talk some sense into the junta. This even after Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy had reached out to the junta with a compromise formula offering to recognise the junta as a de jure (legal) government in return for talks to end the current political stalemate. The proposals offered last month were rejected by the junta saying they had no interest in talking with NLD or restoration of democracy.

The junta has held a whole nation hostage for more than four decades now. The Generals responded to the historic victory of NLD led by the charismatic champion of democracy, Suu Kyi, in 1990 by putting her under house arrest and sending hundreds of her supporters to the prison.

By now, it should have become abundantly clear to Myanmar's neighbours and Asean leaders who have persisted with the false hope all these years that they could eventually persuade the junta to see reason. Truth be told, this gang of bullies doesn't care two hoots for the world public opinion. The Generals have repeatedly proved that they do not speak or understand a language of peaceful persuasion and common sense. The world should therefore speak the language that the junta understands best: that of brute and blind force.

For the junta not only makes a mockery of the expressed democratic verdict of Burmese people, but it also derides the civilised world's willingness and ability to stop injustice, oppression and tyranny anywhere.

Unfortunately, the West and Myanmar's influential neighbours such as China and India have done little so far except issuing perfunctory statements calling for restoration of democracy. Maybe, as many cynics suggest, because Myanmar has no oil! The world cannot afford to let Burma's Generals get away with this open defiance of our collective, celebrated values and beliefs such as freedom, democracy, civil liberties and rule of law. Because, as Martin Luther King argued, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Even those who do not subscribe to the idea of imposing a change from outside by force would agree that if any place on the face of earth needs regime change and right away, it is without doubt Myanmar.