The Bush administration is pressing the U.N. Security Council to vote, possibly as early as today, to condemn one of the world's worst human rights violators: the military regime of Burma. The resolution doesn't call for sanctions or other punitive measures; it would simply make clear that the most august assembly of nations finds Burma's behavior unacceptable and will press for change. Nonetheless, China and Russia are threatening a veto. How it turns out should provide, at least, a moment of clarity in global affairs.
Burma's government is not only one of the world's most repressive; it's also a rare case of a dictatorship that can't even pretend to legitimacy. That's because in 1990 the generals permitted a reasonably free election. The overwhelming winner was Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma's independence hero, and her National League for Democracy. The junta refused to cede power; it has kept Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, under house arrest for most of the years since the election while locking up many of her colleagues.
The generals have waged terrible war against various nationalities in the hills of their lush Southeast Asian nation, displacing more than 1 million people; led the world in the use of rape and forced labor as military weapons; and draped a blanket of fear over their 50 million subjects.