Not again:

Myanmar’s pro-democracy activists, students, Buddhist monks and citizens who are fed up with the ruling military junta in what used to be called Burma have been staging impromptu protests since Aug. 19, when the cancellation of fuel subsidies sent prices soaring. The regime has responded to the demonstrations with violent repression. Their resoluteness should not be surprising. And there is nothing novel about the regime’s response. But the resounding silence of the United Nations is hard to fathom.

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and his special envoy for Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, have had two months to reflect on a June warning about Burma sounded by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Myanmar’s autocratic military rulers have destroyed more villages in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities than have been razed in Darfur. Its partnership in the narcotics trade has helped spread addiction and HIV/AIDS infection to neighbours. The army’s brutal conscription of forced labour has drawn sanctions from the ILO. Because of the UN’s shameful refusal to act during the Rwandan genocide, its leaders ought to feel a moral obligation not to repeat that tragic lapse of solidarity with victims of state-sponsored violence. The organisation cannot afford another display of moral blindness. — The Boston Globe