Don’t Moon Over Burma

DOHA – It doesn’t take a trip to Myanmar to see that measures taken by the international community against the Burmese junta are not working. Recent headlines and the trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi indicate that Myanmar continues to be mired in repression. I recently took a trip there nonetheless. I have friends there, Burmese and foreigners, and I wanted to visit them in their country, a place they described as both beautiful and tragic. Two days into the trip, I found myself eating fried tadpoles and drinking Champagne with Tay Za, one of country’s most powerful businessmen and a close ally of the military junta. My friends and I had been en route to Putao, a mountainous…

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