Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
I know there have been refugees since 1947 encamped close to the border and few have left for the wider world. Somehow I doubt there is a Burmese diaspora that has any effect, unlike the Tamils for example.
Thailand has had a lot of nasty going on. This is one of the things I found out they've been doing recently:
http://democracyforburma.wordpress.c...wed-to-travel/

Thailand has also engaged in the forced repatriation of refugees during active conflict, meaning they do force people back into places where shooting is still going on.

In the URL I originally posted, you might notice that the Brigade 5 is a splinter group. One of the things that illustrates is that this is quite an active conflict.

The Burmese armed forced under control of `the generals' have been engaging in quite an impressive array of war crimes, including organized forced rapes of women in entire villages, a variety of pressed labor activities including using civilians with sticks impressed to clear minefields & mined roads, use of pressed gangs to haul war material, and array of other more tediously evil murders & forced labor that can be expected by a thoroughly corrupt military regime. All that rather recently too, so these are current events I'm referring to, not historical abuses.

Burma is one of what I think of as the `Chinese toilet ring', one of a set of border countries where they encourage despotic regimes in order to make themselves look better by comparison. It's in line with their other imperialistic ambitions, and a quite troubling pattern that has me concerned with their subversive sponsorship of Nepalese Maoists by way of related activity. This is why when you hear propaganda about China's "peaceful rise" you shouldn't believe it for a second. It's a well papered lie, but a lie no matter how they try to cover up for what they're really doing.