Missed this, weird...
Anyway, while the junta in Burma is one of the worst regimes in the world, I do hope you guys realize that the "rebels" are probably going to be just as bad? Maybe I'm being cynical here, but I've studied Third World civil wars long enough to know that there are almost never any good guys in these kinds of wars. Whether it's in Africa, South Asia, or Latin America, just about every armed rebel group is just as bad as the government they're trying to overthrow. It doesn't matter whether they call themselves socialists, communists, nationalists, democrats, or "freedom fighters" - they're almost always guaranteed to be oppressive autocrats if/when they take power in the capital city.
From what I've read, the KNLA (the largest Karen militia in Burma) has its own rep for atrocities (including the use of child soldiers), though probably not as bad as the junta. It may claim to want democracy, but there's a big difference between talk and deeds. Jonas Savimbi used to say he was an anti-communist freedom fighter to his American backers...at the same time he was telling his Chinese backers that he was fighting to establish a Maoist socialist system in Angola. You just can't trust these kinds of people.
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