Time to Act on Burma

Another test for the United Nations

9 August 2006 (Washington Post) - This might seem the least likely moment to expect the U.N. Security Council to take up the question of Burma. Lebanon is burning; Iran is going nuclear -- do the world's diplomats really need one more intractable problem?

But in one sense, the fact that Burma is not at the top of anyone's agenda is exactly the reason the Security Council should act. Burma, also known as Myanmar, offers the United Nations a chance to show that it can deal with a threat to global security before it explodes onto the front page. Burma is not engaging in nuclear blackmail, and it has not attacked a neighboring country. But its malevolent dictatorship does represent a threat to peace: Its depredations at home (mass rapes, enforced child labor, burning of farms and villages) push masses of refugees across its borders. Its economic failures make it a locus of AIDS and other diseases. Its corruption makes it a leading source of illegal drugs. And its population of 50 m suffers under a regime whose repressiveness is rivaled only by North Korea's.

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