So for anyone who has been reading up on the foreign section of the paper as of late you are aware of the recent arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi- for those of you who are not here is the story. This woman has been under house arrest for over a decade, she is the leader of the democratic movement in Myanmar, had won an election (back in1991) which scared the ruling military party in to continual bogus charges against her since in an attempt to create the whole 'out of sight out of mind' for the oppressed in the country. She has been arrested and sent to jail again because... a man tried to break into her house and establish contact with her. A man (who had previously tried to get to her house and give her a bible- save my opinion on Mormons for separate rant) swam across a lake to her house completely uninvited. I am pretty sure this Buddhist older woman in exile really couldn't care about a whack job from the middle of America. So now she is back in jail awaiting trial and conveniently with elections approaching. With the front runner locked up it would be much easier for the Junta to fake legitimize their rule. Not to mention not very Christianly of this man to go and f* any chance at democracy for this oppressed country.
Sadly my issue is that the Obama administration- and the rest of the west - does not seem to care much. It has barely been a year since the cyclone devastated Myanmar, does no one remember the horrors that followed? The ruling Junta not only oppresses their people on a regular basis but in the aftermath of the disaster actually hindered aid delivery from international support and even threatened its own citizens who were trying to help. China has been abysmal at pressuring the country for change (ASEAN embraces the notion of sovereignty far too much). Suu Kyi needs to be cleared of this ridiculous charges in order to stand for future elections or at least lead the democratic charge. The world needs to pressure Myanmar to change because this kind of behavior in the new millennium should not be tolerated .
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