They sit at opposite ends of mainland East Asia, with little that is obviously in common. But the differences between the rogue nations of North Korea and Burma are in the details. Each is unique, but they share an outlook and disdain for their neighbours. It makes them not just unpleasant interlopers in the complicated but generally civilised community of nations. The policies of both countries result in their being shunned in most diplomatic company, places them under suspicion even by their supposed allies, and most seriously has brought decades of needless, cruel and often state-inflicted punishment upon their innocent citizens. They now share the accidental fate of being named, shamed and exposed in honest reports by the United Nations, a forum not given to criticism of members.
Burma borders Thailand and is a documented, serial violator of human rights, as well as a regional troublemaker in two ways. The worst Burmese action against neighbours is the regime's cosy, continuing relationships with world-class drug traffickers. In its promise to end opium growing, the dictatorship made no mention of the United Wa State Army, its drug-dealing leader Wei Hsueh-kang or the methamphetamine trade in general. Just as troubling _ more, if you are a Burmese _ is the military junta's relentless, cruel grip on state power. China, the best friend the generals have, is so mortified it seldom publicises its actions in Burma.
Former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu last month told the UN Security Council that Burma is ``A Threat to Peace'' in the region, the apt title of their joint report. They called for immediate intervention by the UN.
The UN policy for the past 10 years has called for the overthrow of the generals, but the world body hasn't quite figured out how to do that. The secretary-general's special rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said there are 1,100 political prisoners. The special UN envoy Razali Ismail said he saw no sign of improvement on human rights. The generals simply laughed off the UN reports, apparently certain the UN inaction on the issue would continue.
North Korea, too, sneered at a graphic UN report on human rights in that country by Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN rapporteur who laid out some of the charges on these pages. One of the issues he focussed on was abductions _ the old North Korean practice of simply grabbing people and taking them off to Pyongyang for their own purposes. At least two were brainwashed and turned into terrorists, and blew up a Korean Airlines plane off the Thai-Burma coastline. At least one, it has now been learned, was Anocha Panjoy of Chiang Mai, abducted in 1978.
North Korea is not an immediate neighbour of Thailand, although its long-range missiles are capable of carrying its suspected nuclear weapons this far.
Despite many shows of friendship from Thailand, from sponsorship in the Asean Regional Forum to forgiving violent actions in the country, North Korea has shown no reciprocity. Its so-called diplomats have kidnapped Thais at home and abroad, used Thailand for drug smuggling and tried to entrap a Thai telecoms company into smuggling nuclear weapons parts. Its closest ally _ China again _ considers North Korea the greatest threat to peace in Northeast Asia. That is why Beijing has cooperated closely with Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and Moscow in trying to disarm the North, and convince it to give up its nuclear weapons.
The arrogant, dismissive attitudes of Burma and North Korea towards their neighbours and the UN is what makes this rogue pair a case of one problem, two nations. The UN is not a final authority, but it has moral standing. Only arrogant nations with a lot to hide choose to ignore the UN, and flaunt it for decades. Burma's drug dealers and brutality, and North Korea's nuclear weapons proliferation are two sides of the same coin. There is just one reason that these two nations are so universally shunned, and that is the refusal of their narrow-minded and cruel dictators to join the world community.