Silent Birthday in Burma By Bryce Smedley

The current regime seized direct power in 1988 and has been working hard to develop ways of self preservation, partly by using land and resources of Burma’s indigenous people. Burma once contained half of the remaining forests in mainland Southeast Asia, but this figure has plummeted in recent years as Burma's forests are increasingly falling prey to loggers exporting timber, usually illegally, to neighboring countries such as China, Thailand and India, countries that have cut down most of their forests.

The Burmese government has ignored the plight of indigenous people in its country. Thousands of miles of road have been constructed, and massive clear cuts have been punched in the forest. Oil drilling has been aggressively pursued. Pipelines and dams have disrupted the lifestyle, culture, precarious balance of the indigenous economy.

As a country on the take, the military and political elite have lined their pockets with money. This has left the majority of Burma in abject poverty. Yet, the globe continues to spin and there is no solution or talks being pursued by any of the major powers, no action warranted expect the action of isolation. 

The U.S. government is put in an interesting position when it can’t bargain with a country like North Korea, Iran and Burma. So the policy is to isolate them and hope they implode. This “hands off” policy only forces the tyrannical governments to exploit their natural resources until the resources are completely exhausted. Only after complete destruction of the natural environment and a hopeful implosion of the government will we start to truly act in their nation’s interest. Or, ahem, our economic interest.

This policy is killing the natural world and its people. We have no true political bargaining chips in Burma, no diplomatic envoy and no real concern to see even an imprisoned Nobel Peace prize recipient released from illegal arrest. Yet, if it wasn’t for Aung San Suu Kyi birthday recently, would Burma have even made the papers?  It won’t make the paper tomorrow or next week.

Bryce Smedley writes for Lowbagger from the corners of Indochina.