Oh Burma!

As if being a pariah wasn't enough, Than Shwe and the other members of the "State Peace and Development Council", aka the ruling military junta, have decided to show the world how crazy they truly are. With only 48 hours notice, they moved the capital from Rangoon to Pyinmana, a small town in central Burma. Civil servants were told they would have to move or be prosecuted as traitors. Oh, and they can't bring their families.

Why did they do such a radical thing? Well, most people seem to believe it was on advice of the astrologers who serve the junta. That's right, the psychic hotline folks told them to move the capital, so they did. Another theory is that the junta is very concerned that the US might invade. As if anybody in the US even could find Burma on a map. I mean, come on folks. The whole scenario is both sad and comic. I suddenly find myself looking in the papers here for news of the latest shenanigans from Rangoon... I mean Pyinmana. Of course, living in a brutal military dictatorship isn't funny, but you have to wonder if all those Burmese folks in Rangoon aren't breathing a sigh of relief. At least the ones who didn't have to leave their families behind or risk being executed. Yeah...

All this leaves me feeling slightly better about the state of affairs here in Cambodia. Sure the government seems intent on locking up anybody who looks at Hun Sen funny, but at least we're not likely to see a move to some tiny village for fear that we are next on W's hitlist.

Are we?