Crushing the Peacock Revolution in Myanmar

Die-hard protesters waved the peacock flag of the crushed pro-democracy movement on a solitary march yesterday through the eerily quiet streets of Myanmar's largest city.

Housewives and shop owners taunted troops but quickly disappeared into alleyways. Some people blocked soldiers from entering the monasteries in a crackdown on Buddhist monks, who led demonstrations. The soldiers left threatening to return with reinforcements.

The top U.N. envoy on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, arrived in the country but many protesters said they were nonetheless seeing a repeat of the global reaction to a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, when the world stood by as protesters were gunned down in the streets.

The junta will do whatever is necessary to remain in power, and the UN is powerless to stop this. They aren't going to force the junta to step down or stop its crackdown. All they can do is talk. That's what envoys do. They hope that talking is sufficient to stop the revolution and the junta's violent and bloody crackdown.

Of course, we've repeatedly seen that talking will not stop a determined dictatorship from taking whatever actions it sees fit.

Still, it is something of an accomplishment that the envoy was able to meet with imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday. The envoy still has to meet with the junta.

Let's just say that I'm not optimistic that the junta will stop its crackdown and release those it arrested in the crackdown against the monks.