I'm sick to death of hearing heads of state, foreign ministers and other high-level hypocrites claiming that their hearts bleed for the people of Burma while they and their business cronies go on supporting the regime that has been sucking the life out of its people for so long.

It's all we can expect of China, of course, still striving to sustain, export and support totalitarianism while attempting to conceal the catastrophic human and environmental costs of this disgusting system behind a veil of secrecy, lies, corrupt neo-capitalism and its forthcoming 'showcase' Olympic Games.

But you'd imagine that India, forever touting itself as the world's largest democracy, could manage a more liberty-loving response to the latest savage crack-down on by the Burma regime than this: "The government of India is concerned at and is closely monitoring the situation in Myanmar (Burma). It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue. India has always believed that Myanmar's process of political reform and national reconciliation should be more inclusive and broad-based."

The rationale for this piece of wishy-washy diplomatic wankery was, as Bangkok-based journalist and expert on Burmese affairs Bertil Lintner pointed out in an excellent article in the September 29-30 weekend edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, India's need for access to Burma's considerable reserves of natural gas.

The need and greed for energy is largely what fuels support or at least tolerance for countless disgraceful regimes around the world, of course, including those of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Nigeria as well as Burma.

That many governments consider oil, gas and petrol more precious than the blood and guts of mere people is most vividly demonstrated today by the disastrous US war in Iraq. But Malaysia also makes quite a showing through the activities of Petronas.

Petronas used to - and may still, for all I know - run commercials during Formula 1 Grand Prix telecasts that closed with the slogan 'There's no telling how far we'll go'. I especially recall them as an example of what I saw to be unconscious and unintentional honesty - 'There's no telling' signifying the secrecy of Petronas finances, and 'how far we'll go' suggestive of the company's preparedness if not unholy eagerness to stop at nothing when it came to making money, even dealing with regimes like those in Chad, Sudan and Burma.

Business bonanza

But the current Malaysian government and its piggy-bank Petronas are by no means alone in conscience-free business dealings with the Burmese generals. Asean admitted them to membership back in 1997 on the principle - if Asean can be said to have any principles - of "constructive engagement".

This high-sounding phrase has clearly proved nothing but a pathetic pretext for dealing with a regime that is not only reviled for its systematic murder, rape, torture and forced labour of its citizens, but is also ranked in the Transparency International Corruption Index 2007 as (equally with Somalia) the most corrupt country in the world.

So it must be a business bonanza for any of its friends in Asean whose ethics and honesty are suspect, as they so notoriously are in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam as well as, of course, Malaysia.

And Singapore, so proudly squeaky-clean at home, is also apparently in on the action. An article by Eric Ellis in the Sydney Morning Herald on Oct 1 quotes Singapore's (unnamed) former head of foreign trade as saying during the 1990s about his country building links with Burma.

"While other countries are ignoring it, it's a good time for us to go in. You get better deals and you're more appreciated. Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgmental moral high ground," he is quoted as saying.

Ellis then goes on to state that "from hotels, airlines, military equipment and training, crowd control equipment and sophisticated telecommunications monitoring devices, Singapore is a crucial manager and supplier to the junta, and Burma's economy".

He then cites "a leading authority on Burma's military", Andrew Selth, as writing in Jane's Intelligence Review under the pen-name William Ashton that Singapore has sent guns rockets, armoured personnel carriers and grenade launchers to the junta, provided equipment for a cyber-war centre to monitor dissident activity and helped train Burma's secret police.

Ellis also quotes from Myanmar on 'My Mind', a handbook written by Matthew Sim - a Singaporean diplomat to Burma - which gives advice like "a little money goes a long way in greasing the wheels of productivity" and states that "many successful Myanmar businessmen have opened shell companies (in Singapore) with little or no staff, used to keep funds overseas".

Two of the businessmen Sim may have been alluding to, Ellis' article continues, were "junta cronies Tay Za and drug lord Lo Hsing Tan", adding that Robert Gelbard, a former US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has said that "half of Singapore's investments in Burma has been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han".

Target them all!

As contemptuous as I am of Singaporean, Malaysian and other Asean leeches on Burma's bedeviled populace, I can't come on all holier than thou from Down Under.

I've discovered to my horror that there's an Australian oil-exploration company giving Petronas and Singapore Inc a run for their Myanmar money.

In a Sydney Morning Herald story headed 'Sanctions don't work, says investor with Liberal ties', Craig Skehan reports that a company owned by prominent Howard government supporter Harold Clough and his sons Bill and John is in a joint venture with a Burmese military oil and gas enterprise.

Asked if this transgressed Australian government sanctions against the Burma regime, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer reportedly said that sanctions are aimed at the regime, and that "they are not targeting Australian business".

To which my retort is that if the Howard government isn't targeting Australian organisations that do business with Burma's generals, then it bloody well should.

As all of us should target every government that is making suckers of the rest of humanity by giving aid and comfort to the Burmese generals, as well as every business that imagines there's no telling how far it can go in helping suck every last drop of blood from the Burmese people.