Submitted by Nikos Retsos, academic, Sep 27, 2007 08:52

This second serious popular uprising in Burma by BUddist monks is the second serious chalenge to Burma's thug General Tan Shwe since the 1988 student uprising by the 88 Generation Students Group. Shwe and his corrupt clique of general are starving 42 million people as North Korea's Kim Jong Il starves 22 million haples Koreans. And both regimes are kept afloat by China as subordinate entities of Chinese political influence.

China, however, cannot sustain such regimes, whereas it is the butcher generals of Burma, or the North Korean that still lives on medieval times with widespread starvation and untold human suffering. Neither of these regimes can stay in power without the trade and credits of the Chinese government that keep them afloat, and the political support at the U.N. Security Council.

But aiding and supporting the murderous Burma's generals, China corrupts and desecrates the essense of the Olympic Games. The Essense of Olympic Games was to take human competition from the Battlefield and transfer it into the Stadiums where the Best will shine, and Achieve the Glory and Fame without the spear and the sword, and without battlefields strewn with human bodies and flesh. And if Burman today is allowed by its sponsor China to turn its streets into battlefields with Chinese blessing, then China does not have the moral authority and sustenance to host the Olympic Games. And as a Greek-American myself, I feel ashamed to see countries participate in the Olympic Games in a country who sees the slaughter of citizens by a despotic regimes under the wings of China as an internal matter.

I hope other countries will think about their participation in the Olympics, and come out early with notices to Chinese government that unless there is regime change in Burma they will keep their teams out of the Olympic Games. And that will be the BEST WAY to honor the spirit ofthe Olympics, and save 42 million Burmese from slaughter and starvation.

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