The military's brutal treatment of the pro-democracy demonstrators and, in particular the nation's Buddhist monks, have provoked revulsion worldwide.
To watch such scenes on TV made difficult viewing but it is nothing compared with the suffering of those who have been forced to flee the country. Earlier this year, I took a month's paid leave from my job as a specialist drugs worker at Cheshire County Council to work unpaid in Bangkok, Thailand, with a group of refugees from Myanmar - formerly known as Burma.
The 74 boys and one girl were being housed in a Buddhist temple in the middle of Phat Phong, a neglected and polluted area of downtown Bangkok. The temple of Vishnu was in the middle of a graveyard, bordering on a shantytown, adjacent to six-lane highways.
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