The images out of Burma — out of “Myanmar” — last week were stunning, exotic, inspiring, all over the Internet … and then they were gone.
Red-robed Buddhist monks first padded in single file, cordoned by hand-holding young civilians. Then they marched in the thousands, chanting “democracy,” surrounded by Burmese crowds. Then came beatings and barbed wire and the crackdown by Myanmar’s military regime. And empty streets, again.
What just happened here? And will the big powers that matter — China, India — do anything about it?
This hour, On Point: the monks’ revolt in Myanmar.
-Tom Ashbrook
Extra: A photo gallery of the Myanmar protests, from the AP and blogs
Guests:
Khin Ohmar, joining us from Mae Sod, Thailand, on the border with Myanmar, she is coordinator for the pro-democracy group “Asia-Pacific People’s Partnership on Burma,” and is gathering photos and reports from inside Myanmar.
Simon Montlake, correspondent in Bangkok for the Christian Science Monitor.
David Steinberg, joining us from Singapore, he is director of Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and author of ” Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar.”
Robert Templer, joining us from New York, he is Asia Program Director for the International Crisis Group.
Tags: Burma, monks, Myanmar, politics
