I'm surprised that the Chinese allowed this to happen, and am curious to see what happens next. Anybody know what has historically happened as a result of previous rebukes from the Security Council?
Gambari is expected to be heading back to Burma in the next few days (which is sooner than had been the previous plan).
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I'm aware that the updates that I'm making to this thread aren't of general interest, but I think that I'll go on making them, just for the sake of having a (more) complete record of how all of this unfolded to look back on. Toward that end:
It looks like Soe Win, Burma's Prim Minister, has died. He had leukemia after all, it seems; it had been rumored that he did, but it wasn't certain. His death isn't expected to have any impact with regard to the protests and subsequent crackdowns.
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I'm reading them! I looked for information on the historical effects of UNSC rebukes but couldn't find anything and then got distracted.
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Burma is still arresting the people who participated in the protests. The military government's statement on the subject is "Those who led, got involved in and supported the unrest which broke out in September were called in and are being interrogated....Some are still being called in for questioning and those who should be released will be."
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A popular Burmese actor, his wife, and a very popular Burmese comedian had all three been arrested early in the crackdown, and have now been freed. I'm curious to know what the military government's motivation is for releasing them. All of the protestrers who have been released have had to sign agreements saying that they won't participate in futurre protests. I wonder what these three had to agree to. Given that they're popular figures, I could see the military government hoping to use them to shore up popular support for itself. Or I could see their release as as a token intended to relieve teh building anti-Burma sentiment on the international stage. If the military government had ever shown any indication in the past of caring about the way they're perceived internationally, I'd be more inclined to think that that were the case.
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This could potentially be good news, but it's hard to say yet (given the military government's past actions it seems unlikely, but you never know). The opposition (ie the winner of the last election) isn't represented on the committee, which is definitely not a good sign, but it's still possible that this committee will be something more than the government's hand puppet.
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