Violent and Bloody Crackdown Continues in Myanmar

Bloody bodies are left sitting at a pagoda dedicated to world peace as a grim reminder of what happens if you cross the junta.

The junta's thugs come in the middle of the night to kidnap and murder those who supported the demonstrations. People simply go missing. And reporters can't actually do any proper reporting because the junta is doing everything imaginable to keep the news of what is really going on from getting out:

It was around midnight when the long convoy of military vehicles drove into the district. They contained police officers from the anti-insurgency unit and the so-called "Lome-Ten," a unit of gangsters and ex-convicts, who do the regime's dirty work.

They surrounded a monastery on Weiza Yandar Street. All the roughly 200 monks living there were forced to stand in a row and the security forces beat their heads against a brick wall. When they were all covered in blood and lay moaning on the ground, they were thrown into a truck and taken away. "We are crying for our monks," said the man, and then he was gone.

Four days have passed since the last shots were fired in central Yangon but normality has yet to return to Burma's largest city. Most shops remain closed today and the human rights violations continue. Horrifying rumors and news of further repressive measures continue to leak out.

These rumors are difficult to confirm as journalists are not allowed to work in the country. The few correspondents who are left in the country on tourist visas are being observed day and night. Secret service spies waylay them at their hotels. And even if the regime doesn't dare to execute another foreign journalist following the death of the Japanese photographer last week, it's still impossible to conduct normal reporting and research.

The junta knows that free speech is the enemy of dictatorships. A bloody crackdown was necessary to keep the populace in line, and to eliminate those who might consider rising up against the junta, even if it was through nonviolent means.

Killing the Japanese photojournalist last week was a temporary inconvenience to the junta. They'll simply do a better job of preventing any journalists from operating in the country to report on what the junta is doing to the people.

What little we do know is horrifying enough. Thousands of people, including many monks, have been taken from their homes or monastaries and are imprisoned in the junta's gulag. The Times Online even calls one such facility a concentration camp. I'm not sure that's far off the mark. The junta is engaging in repressive and violent acts to preserve itself, all at the expense of the rights of the people.