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Burma's military junta – puppet dictatorship of Chinese

 

The international community and analysts are now saying Burma 's military regime has eventually become a colony of China and Russia. The Burmese generals are now acceding to demands by the Chinese and Russian counterparts. As long as the Burmese generals let China and Russia have access to its natural resources, they will veto any resolution proposed at the UN Security Council by the United States and the EU nations.

China is supporting Burma with its economic and geopolitical interests in the country: oil and gas reserves, mineral deposits, and arms sales. China had sold jet fighters, frigates and other heavy military equipment for the Burmese military Junta to crack down on the ethno democratic force and together with Russia is also the first nation to veto the Burmese problem from discussing at the UN Security Council effectively stuffing out the ethno democratic aspirations of the Burmese people.

As far as arms and ammunitions are concerned, despite the arms embargo imposed on the military regime, the generals have been able to buy arms and ammunitions from different exporters in Europe . The biggest suppliers are China , Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. While China has been the biggest supplier of advanced helicopter gun ships, fighter planes, naval vessels, tanks and small arms including mortars, landmines and assault rifles, Russia comes in second at $396 million, then Serbia and Ukraine. Now that the Burmese generals have to rely on China and Russia for arms and ammunitions, intelligence and political support to make sure they are in power. Who knows when the Chinese will send its army to occupy Burma like they did in Tibet?

An international outcry over Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has grown steadily louder. How can the premier event in international sports be hosted by a nation complicit in the most heinous international crimes? The Chinese regime is guilty of perpetrating the ongoing destruction of Tibet, supporting the vicious Burmese Junta, engaging in gross domestic human rights abuses, and, perhaps worst of all, facilitating genocide in Darfur and Burma?  Beijing's currently enabling attitudes is a real threat that "their" Olympics will be redefined, made the occasion of an unprecedented shaming campaign. Much more potent than a simple boycott--which does more to punish athletes and the entire international sports community--such a campaign, broadly supported, will create precisely the powerful forum for outrage that Beijing works so hard to suppress domestically. But, if the world pretends that the 2008 Games occur in a moral and political vacuum and yet if Darfur and Burma's agony continues, these Games will inevitably be remembered as the "Genocide Olympic".

Link between Burma 's suffering and China's Olympics won't go away!

On Aug. 8, 2008, the summer Olympics will begin in Beijing. The date is not accidental. The number eight represents good fortune in Chinese culture.

But that date falls exactly 20 years after the infamous day Burmese military forces massacred more than 1,000 civilians who were demonstrating for democratic rule. On Aug. 8, 1988, after the slaughter, Burma's Nobel winner Aung San Suu Kyi made her first political speech and assumed the role of opposition leader. The link between the two dates has been noticed by many who are horrified by the current carnage in Burma.

Burmese civilians, along with saffron-robed Buddhist monks, are again being cut down in the streets. China, Burma's neighbor and major trading partner, is best positioned to influence the current junta, and urge them to negotiate with Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 18 years.

But China has blocked efforts by the United States and European countries to have the United Nations Security Council condemn the crackdown, saying it is an internal matter for Burma (called Myanmar by the junta). Despite China's growing leadership role in Asia, it has been unwilling to take the lead in resolving the crisis.

If the Burmese military continues its repression, and China continues to turn a blind eye, many human-rights campaigners will press for a boycott of, or protests, linked to the Olympics. What should be a date that brings great good fortune to China could be tarnished by its linking to the Burmese bloodshed in 1988, and now.

So the question in many observers' minds is this: Will China try to avoid such linkage by using its economic influence and growing global clout to press the junta to make a deal?

Right now the issue is on hold at the United Nations. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talked tough about the killings, and President Bush called for new economic sanctions. But the U.N. envoy sent to visit Burma's junta returned with little, except a specious offer for talks with Suu Kyi — if she first renounced the opposition's demands. Meantime, Burma's generals are insulated from pressure by their exports of oil, gas and gemstones — and by China's veto on the Security Council.

And yet, the linkage between Burma's suffering and the Olympics won't go away.

If China won't help resolve the Burmese crisis before August 2008, that Olympic date will inevitably be linked by protesters to Aug. 8, 1988. The Beijing Olympics could become known as the Burma Olympics. Surely that is not what the Chinese leadership wants.

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