Burma's Military Dictatorship Extends Suu Kyi's Confinement

Every year the military dictatorship that controls Burma (called Myanmar by the dictators) with a brutal iron fist, plays a cruel trick on Aung San Suu Kyi, the last elected leader of Burma and its most prominent pro-Democracy leader. Within days of her release, an order is executed extending her detention for another year. The latest order was just issued. Here's CNN's report.

Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has now been held in detention 11 of the last 17 years. Others in Burma's pro-democracy movement have been disappeared or killed.

The State Department will certainly throw out some critical words and then Condi will hit the shoe stores. As in the past, I won't hold my breath waiting for them to make this issue a real priority. There are, after all, gas fields just off the coast.

For more on the atrocious human rights record of Burma's military dictatorship, here are links to dozens of reports prepared by Human Rights Watch.

Finally, here's Damien Rice's great tribute to Aung. Maybe John Boehner ought to shed a tear for this one instead of a bogus fumnding victory that will cost hundreds of American soldiers their lives: