I entirely agree with your feelings,  but considering that Burma's been a military dictatorship for over 40 years, I doubt they will take any notice of our t-shirts tomorrow 

Consecutive British Governments have wrung their hands about the situation in Burma - and done nothing. Meantime China is getting rich off sanctions-busting, totally undermining what little the world's "leading" nations have tried to do.  Singapore has also aided and abetted the Rangoon regime substantially. Miliband Snr hasn't so far exercised himself on the matter (whilst simultaneously reading speeches about Human Rights at his Party Conference, in which he failed to even mention Burma). This seems rather strange, since he wasted no time expelling four Russian diplomats, and putting the brakes on visa-issue to Russians planning to visit the UK (numbers now reduced to a Cold-War trickle).  But the situation in Burma, we presume, doesn't merit such a level of seriousness, and Miliband prefers to embrace a C19th foreign policy gambit known as "masterly inaction".

Let's be quite clear - wearing t-shirts will achieve nothing. The proper avenue for putting pressure on Rangoon now would be freezing Burma's bank-accounts and assets in the UK, putting a 100% block on entry to the UK for all Govt officials of "Myanmar", and calling the "Myanmaran" Ambassador to the Court of St James and giving him seven days to effect from current harassment of the protestors or face summary dismissal.

Perhaps Mr Miliband thinks its worth waiting until there's a bloodbath first?  More likely, he is waiting to get his orders from Condoleeza Rice.

Oh, I'll be wearing a red t-shirt too.    I have a premiere coming up next week, and we will leaflet the programmes asking people to lobby their MPs not to sell nuclear facilities to Rangoon.

The problem is China. Burma is a microcosm of China...  it's a majority-Buddhist country ruled by a non-elected military elite, who live in luxury at the expense of their people.  Whereas in China, it's errr...  exactly the same.  Only at least the Burmese aren't hypocrites, and don't pretend to be doing it on behalf of the workers, as the Chinese do.

China is a country in which control of the media rests entirely in Govt hands - few Chinese know much about what goes on in the world outside their own borders.  (Even well-educated Chinese have only the haziest idea about Europe and its countries, because few books are permitted about them, and those few are written by Chinese authors who haven't been there and write to-order for Govt-run publishing houses.  Many Chinese think Britain is a part of Germany, and that all of Europe has united into one large country - which is against China, of course.)

But even given this situation, it's clear to the authorities in Beijing that any softening towards monks demanding democratic reforms in Burma will quickly bring down identical problems upon their own heads.  No-one really knows how many people in China are sufficiently disatisfied with the Government to want to remove it - not even those who hope to try doing so.  (China has done quite a good bread-and-circuses job of buying-off its populace with crappy-but-cheap consumer goods and tv game-shows).   So the chances that China will relent on its open support for Burma are very low.  Although China says it will not intervene in what it deems "an internal matter" in Burma,  it sees no conflict of interest in simultaneously busting UN sanctions by cross-border trade with Burma.  Although this trade barely exists on paper, in reality it's colossal - it very much suits China to have a monopoly of trade with Burma, in which it can name the price at which it will buy oil, gas, timber, rubber, precious stones and metals, and other Burmese exports it buys for peanuts.  Burma is actually facing deforestation in some areas - because China's military is driving trucks into the area, cutting the forests down (China can't supply its own timber needs) and carting them off in exchange for cash payments to the Burmese Generals.  This trade isn't even documented and in theory doesn't exist. Independent monitors estimate that seven tonnes of timber are exported from Burma per hour - on one border-crossing alone (based on axle-weight).  Whole communities in Burma have been left homeless and penniless as a result. One main reason for the absence of documentation is that once the timber (mostly rare hardwoods) reaches China it's turned into products labelled "Made In China", which can be flooded onto world markets with none of the restrictions that apply to Burmese-made goods.

The route to putting pressure on Rangoon lies in confronting China.  Given the balance of trade deficit America has with China (so great that it would take the USA into economic recession or even bankruptcy, so great are the sums involved, and war-torn America has no funds with which to pay them), America dare not make the slightest serious criticism of China.  The rest of the New World Order has fallen in obediently behind Washington on this.

Seconded. I don't know enough about the situation and attempt to make up for that with enthusiasm and passion, so it's always good to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about.

Updates (click for news story from the BBC):
Nine people confirmed dead, including a Japanese journalist
Thought for the Day: 'Love over fear'
Aung San Suu Kyi's part in the crisis
Western politicians urge China and India to influence Burma
The Junta blames foreign media for the crisis and attempts to take action to ensure that this cannot continue

I bought my red t-shirt this afternoon and will be wearing it tomorrow.

I knew I read something about this today!

Did anyone see Simon Schama's suggestion on Question Time last night that the best way to put pressure on the Chinese might be to boycott the 2008 Olympics. Don't know if he came up with that, or if he got it from somewhere else, but it sounds like an excellent idea. Boycotting products or trade sanctions won't work - they'll hurt the Chinese worker as much as the regime, and boycotting Chinese products is nigh-on impossible. But boycotting their big Olympic coming out party - that would really hurt, I think.

The argument about the Moscow Olympics was brought up last night, but I think the significant difference is that so much of China's focus has been on 2008 as their prom night, a celebratation of the country's emergence as a global trading partner for the 21st century. I just think there's too much invested in the symbolism from the Chinese side for them to want to jeopardise that. I prefer it to any suggestion of sanctions mainly because it comes down to that single point, which most directly affects the regime. Everyone has too much financial investment, besides anything else, for trade sanctions to get much support I'd have thought.

Thanks Reiner - my thoughts were formed entirely from a distance, but good to have them confirmed by someone 'on the ground' as it were.