What the :wub: is going on in Burma/Myanmar?

[bushbush]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapc...ees/index.html

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Thousands of refugees from Myanmar poured across the border into southern China at the end of the week to escape fighting there, a provincial official told CNN on Friday.
The exact nature of the conflict and when it started were not immediately clear, but people began crossing the border into Yunnan province Thursday morning, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Exile groups reported that factions of a rebel army in northeastern Myanmar were battling each other.
"First, we'd like to clarify that these people who crossed the borders are not called the refugees -- they are residents near the borders," a Yunnan government spokesman said.
"Due to the war in their country, they crossed the border into our province. At the moment, there are about 10,000 of them."
The number of people fleeing from Myanmar continued to increase Friday, sources with Yunnan's provincial foreign affairs office said, according to Xinhua. Watch a report on the flight of the refugees »
"At the moment, we do not know how long they are going to stay in our province, and we do not know how long we will keep them," the government spokesman told CNN. "But on humanitarian grounds, we will provide help and support to them properly."

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sounds like some serious conflicts; any more credible sources on what's giong on?

[hellheaven1987]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8227598.stm

Basically, it seems a new wave of military operation conducts by Burma government is undergoing now, perhaps related about the political situation in Burma recent months.

Anyway, I think everyone is more interesting about Dalai Lama's trip on Taiwan (piss off China) and election in Japan...

[bushbush]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8227598.stm

Basically, it seems a new wave of military operation conducts by Burma government is undergoing now, perhaps related about the political situation in Burma recent months.

Anyway, I think everyone is more interesting about Dalai Lama's trip on Taiwan (piss off China) and election in Japan...

wow burma has some balls (given by the recent american senator's visit i am guessing)....

[hellheaven1987]

??? Perhaps Burma government believes in order to compete against North Korea for US aid it is better to do something more nauty in order to earn attention.

[Erik]

Basically, it seems a new wave of military operation conducts by Burma government is undergoing now

According to the CNN article, it was likely fighting amongst different rebel factions that caused it.

The BBC (which has an obvious bias against the Myanmar government, evidenced by their use of the word "junta" *) doesn't say outright who caused it.

I think it's too early to know for sure, but it seems the government was merely reacting by China's request to stop the fighting that had already started.
Myanmar has a lot of ethnic conflicts and has been in a civil war before, it's easy to blame the brutal government but without them there would probably be wide scale ethnic cleaning. (funny how the British - who caused the ethnic conflicts in the first place - keep ignoring that fact)


(*) "Junta" is an old Spanish word for regime/government, in modern times it was used to refer to the Spanish speaking communist regimes in South America - there is no (real) reason to call Myanmar's government a "junta".

[mongrel]

There has been fighting between (the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) DKBA and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) outside Three Pagodas Pass, for the last couple of months now.