At the Moei river in Thailand there is sticky sunshine, jungle and the world's media in waiting. Yet there is no flood of refugees from across the border in Burma.
From Rangoon there are disturbing reports of monks fleeing the city; of thousands more locked up in windowless improvised prisons with little to eat or drink. Nine died during the disturbances, says the military junta that calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) – an appropriately Orwellian name for the gang of butchers that rules the country where Orwell once served as a policeman. The real figure could be as high as 200 but as yet no one knows where the bodies are.
The Rangoon bloodbath last week was not a surprise to veteran observers of the country. What was expected to follow was what occurred following the far bloodier crackdown in 1988: a flood of political refugees to the border.
Yet it hasn't happened. One week ago three monks were smuggled across the Moei river which divides the two countries, and vanished into safe houses before any journalists could get at them. On Tuesday a major in the Burmese army, sick of carrying out despicable orders, followed them over. So far that's it.
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