Here's some background on the tragedy playing out in Burma:

While the work of French clandestine services in Indochina enabled the opium trade to survive a government repression campaign, some CIA activities in Burma helped transform the Shan States from a relatively minor poppy cultivating area into the largest opium-growing region in the world. The precipitous collapse of the Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang, or KMT) government in 1949 convinced the Truman administration that it had to stem "the southward flow of communism" into Southeast Asia. In 1950 the Defense Department extended military aid to the French in Indochina. In that same year, the CIA began regrouping those remnants of the defeated Kuomintang army in the Burmese Shan States for a projected invasion of southern China. Although the KMT army was to fail in its military operations, it succeeded in monopolizing and expanding the Shan States' opium trade. (excerpt from The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity In The Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy)
Secret War In Burma: The KMT

The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia - Wikipedia

The Politics of Heroin - Amazon

Alfred W. McCoy - Wikipedia

Some other players:

‘’Chevron and its consortium partners continue to rely on the Burmese army for pipeline security and those forces continue to conscript thousands of villagers for forced labour, and to commit torture, rape, murder and other serious abuses in the course of their operations,’’ revealed the 76-page report, ‘The Human Cost of Energy’.

Chevron should act on ‘’its moral and legal obligations to human rights rather than profit from human rights abuses,’’ the report added of this project that earned the Burma’s junta about 1.1 billion US dollars in 2006, over half of its total earnings from the sale of gas to neighbouring Thailand, which was 2.16 billion dollars that year.

‘’Chevron can be sued by villagers from Burma if it does not stop the human rights violations,’’ Naing Htoo, EI’s Burma Project coordinator, said during a press conference at the launch of the report. ‘’The violations are happening every day.’’
Burma: US Oil Major Complicit in Abuses - Rights Lobby - IPS News

BANGKOK, Apr 29, 2010 (IPS) - When shareholders of the multinational company Chevron gather for their annual meeting in the U.S. city of Houston in late May, they will come face to face with Naing Htoo, whose community has suffered due to the exploits of the energy giant in military-ruled Burma.

"I want to expose what has gone on as a result of Chevron’s investments in Burma," says the 30-year-old from the Karen ethnic minority. "The shareholders need to know where their money is going and the suffering it is causing."
Pressure Mounts On Energy Giant Chevron To Disclose Revenue - IPS News

I had planned tonight to read from my last interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, but I decided not to – because of something Suu Kyi said to me when I last spoke to her. "Be careful of media fashion," she said. "The media like this sentimental version of life that reduces everything down to personality. Too often this can be a distraction."
The Hypocrites Who Say They Back Democracy In Burma - John Pilger - antiwar.com

A sad state of affairs.