I know my grasp of Buddhism is very weak, but is this sort of behavior not outside what their religion teaches?
You are completly right there Major.
But what meets the eye is not the religion. It's a misfit of that religion. Just take a look at the Evangelists of America. Religions are all
corrupted today.
The kadres of Pol Pot, for instance, looked upon his teaching as "a marxist way of Buddhisme", and in Thailand were I reside, greed and envy runs
higher than any other place I know. Here monks are caught dealing drugs, having mistreses and murdering them too for that matter. Not uncommen, when a
"big" monk passes away they find bankbooks with million in holdings.
Religion is a way to endure the given conditions, and it will do anything to adapt to those conditions.
In this part of the world (SE Asia), if the goverment don't have the clergy on its side they are in for rough times. I can only fear what will happen
in Myanmar.
On the other hand, this revolt has been going on since 1988, and the country is underdeveloped, huge and sparsely populated, so I'm afraid nothing
will happen before the outside world intervens. It might very well come, cause the Andaman Sea holds some of the worlds largest known gas deposits
within Burmese territorial waters.
They are developing the gas fields right now, and have been exporting the gas for at least a couple of years.
You can see the glares from the flames out on the sea, pumping gas for export worth the annual national consumption,
a day, while the power in
the land routinely is cut at 9 PM - to save fuel.
The junta generals need every penny they can make, they know there time is up but are gonna hold on till the end, no matter the costs.
Did you know that Mayanmar last year moved its capital from Rangoon to an all new build town, more than a thousand miles inland? For securety reasons,
they say. It's not the internal security they are thinking about there. Naypyidaw, they call the new capital.
It's too much to think, that the junta might be topled in weeks, if we stopped purchasing their gas.
Big oil keeps the junta in power.
A link to the power crises of Burma I did. (I'll try to link other mostly posts I've done on it - if I can find them)
Russia to build atomic plant for Burmese junta
and
Wiki article on Maynmar