Thu, 08/13/2009
The Jakarta Post
Opinion

World leaders and human rights groups could only spew condemnation and anger in the direction of the chief of Myanmar’s junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for his continuous, merciless and brutal treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, the county’s incarcerated democracy leader.

Than Shwe’s latest act of injustice came Tuesday, when he extended the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house arrest by 18 months for allowing an uninvited American to stay in her home for two nights in May. One Myanmarese general rendered the rest of the world’s will irrelevant for no good reason.

Than Shwe and his cadres fully know that no one will ever be able to punish them, not even the world’s most powerful man, US President Barack Obama, because the leaders of the other nine members of ASEAN – Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – are staunch opponents of any efforts to punish Myanmar’s heartless rulers.