The grotesque and sadly inspirational picture, now widely distributed in American media outlets, is that of hundreds of flip-flops lining a street stained in blood in a remote corner of the world a corner that the world perpetually ignores.

The Union of Myanmar (commonly referred to as Burma) lies between China and India, just north of the Bay of Bengal. Since 1962, it has been under strict military control that has brutally crushed several democratic uprisings.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been the foremost supporter of the struggle for democracy and escape from oppression. Because of her role in democratic elections in 1988 — where she received enough votes to become prime minister, but the ruling junta refused to let her take office — she has been kept under house arrest for nine of the past 14 years. She has been compared to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, and even Bono proclaimed, “She’s my hero.”

The Myanmar military response to the latest protests, which started in August under the leadership of local Buddhist monks, has been morally repugnant in every sense. The protests were entirely peaceful, calling on the military junta to recognize democracy after they arbitrarily upped gas prices by almost 500 percent.

Instead of being greeted with ballots, they were greeted with bullets. Spiritual and peaceful monks were bludgeoned, some even to death. Peaceful protesters also fled the bloodshed, many of whom ran so quickly that they lost their sandals amid the gory chaos. There are rumors of massacres outside the major protest areas; one eyewitness even recounted seeing soldiers burning injured protesters alive. At least 4,000 monks were arrested and are now imprisoned in the far north of the country.

These actions are not unusual for the junta; generally, the military ruthlessly persecutes minorities in the nation, with vast accounts of rape and execution being the common tools of oppression.

Military leaders try to keep the press from leaking information to the outside world out of fear of international repercussions. Eyewitnesses claim that soldiers target members of the press during the protests, arresting and executing individuals found with cameras. Internet access has been shut down and individuals had to risk their lives to send out footage. Even though the images leak out, no nation is jumping to change the region’s instability.

In 2003, President Bush informed the nation that we were undertaking Operation Iraqi Freedom and that we would bring democracy to Iraq whether they wanted it or not. If this pretext were the true reason behind the American invasion of Iraq, we would take into full account the other 70 or so dictators in the world, including the repressive Burmese regime. Apparently, the Burmese military isn’t a threat because they don’t possess fictional weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. and Europe both have embargoes on economic and military aid, but the Burmese military still imports weapons from Russia and China. Economic ties from American companies such as Chevron Corp. still persist, aiding the regime financially.

The Burmese people also criticize China for blocking any action potentially taken by the U.N. Security Council to stop the endless oppression. China imports billions of dollars worth of natural gas, petroleum, timber and precious gems from Myanmar every year. Relations between Beijing and Yangon have become close over the past decades because of a common denominator: demolishing pro-democracy uprisings.

In order to stop these atrocities, the U.S. must take a greater role in putting pressure on Myanmar’s neighbors to stop support of the military junta, including direct diplomatic pressure on China and India for their tacit approval of such open and blatant oppression.

Once we actually follow through with a foreign policy directive and elicit the aid of the democratic nations of the world, maybe we can give the owners of those bloody flip-flops the freedom they deserve. I hope the world listens to the pleas of Aung San Suu Kyi when she says, “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”

Michael Stevenson is a State News columnist and member of the MSU College Democrats. Reach him at steve391@msu.edu.