Martyrdom in Myanmar

The clergy-led popular protests against the ruling Burmese military junta has provoked the reaction we all dreaded, and privately expected: a military crackdown.

"Burmese security forces raided two Buddhist monasteries this morning, beating up and hauling away more than 70 monks after a day of violent confrontation, sources said.

The security forces used firepower for the first time yesterday against street protests that have brewed over the past month into the biggest demonstrations against Burma's military rulers since 1988.

At least one man was killed and others wounded in chaotic clashes in Rangoon.

A monk at the Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery, pointing to bloodstains on the concrete floor, said a number of monks were beaten and at least 70 of its 150 monks taken away in vehicles."

Brown has recommended the UN Security Council deal with the situation, and that sanctions be imposed on Burma. The experience of the UN sanctions on Iraq between the two Gulf wars have shown us that sanctions only empower the offending government by its control of increasingly limited supplies and necessities.

Instead, the first thing Britain and the other UNSC states should do is stop selling arms to Burma. A threat of humanitarian intervention if an increase in humanitarian aid is not properly delivered to the people (as happened in Iraq) would put pressure on the government. In addition, we should ramp up our political and financial support of pro-democracy movements inside Burma.

Sanctions are not the way forward to aiding the Saffron Revolution, as its campaign must now change from aiming for survival instead of victory. Sanctions only hurt the people themselves, while empowering the government. We need some fresh thinking on non-military humanitarian intervention, as the strategic cultures of Britain and the US, judging by Brown's prescriptions, are still focused on oscillations between military intervention and sanctions. What happened to soft power?