With the world’s attention focussed (rightly) on Gaza, the ongoing tragedy of Burma/Myanmar remains almost unseen. Just as the Israelis are keeping foreign journalists out of Gaza, so the Burmese junta stops reporters getting in there to see what is happening. Moreover, now that last year’s cyclone has been forgotten by the outside world and the monks’ protests have been quashed, Burma just isn’t ‘news’ as far as the global media is concerned, with a few noble exceptions such as the BBC World Service.

Nonetheless, the bloody repression there continues, including the torture of political prisoners. On 30 December, nine members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested in Rangoon (Yangon) for demonstrating in favour of the release from house arrest of their leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi (who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991) has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years in detention, her ‘crime’ being that her party won Burma’s last democratic election in 1990 – a result which the junta simply refused to accept.

The monks have gone, transported to northern prisons or shot dead, and “normalcy” has returned to the streets of Burma, in the word of the country’s United Nations ambassador. But is there more the international community, in particular its neighbour’s, could have done to force the hand of the military junta and bring democracy to Burma? Yes, there is, and the answer lies in India.

During the protests in Burma over the past two weeks, the UN showed how ineffective its current structural system could be. Meetings were held, debates were had, but in the end no concrete action was taken, doubtless because Russia and China would have vetoed it anyway, just as they vetoed a resolution criticising the regime in January of this year. Even if they had the political will, the US and UK are not equipped to launch a military expedition to Burma in defence of democracy – forces are too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment. So, another country needs to be willing to intervene, but which one?