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Dig for oil, Aung San Suu Kyi! Burma''s government is continuing to get an easy ride, despite its recent return to openly repressive tactics. Increasingly it is national minorities who are feeling the heat.

Article Excerpt
The war on Iraq this year, according to the leaders of the coalition of the willing', was important because of the need to remove tyrannical dictators and in order to restore democracy. Ironic, then, that democratically elected leader of Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, finds herself yet again in detention 'for her own protection'. On 30 May this year a group allegedly backed by the military attacked a group of two hundred National League for Democracy (NLD) members, including Suu Kyi and Vice-Chairman, U Tin Oo. The violence that erupted that night led to the rearrest of Suu Kyi and her subsequent detention in an undisclosed location. Amnesty International has released a list of names of over one hundred people who were either officially arrested or 'disappeared' on that day.

Freedom of information and expression is all but non-existent in Burma and the precise number of political prisoners being held remains difficult to...