The latest enemy of the Burmese junta isn’t even alive, but it has the power to make the generals furious enough. This fiend carries information the generals don’t want disclosed to the outside world.

This enemy can’t be sent to prison along with other forces of opposition, but it can be eliminated, silenced, cut dead. Anywhere else in the world it’s a harmless means of communication. In Burma, it’s a telephone-and highly suspect.

Dozens of landline and mobile phone services have been cut off in recent days. The latest victim is the only phone line of the opposition National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon.

The numbers of phone lines now being severed by a paranoiac regime might appear insignificant when compared to the hundreds of thousands still in operation throughout Burma. But they represent the main lines of communication that provide essential information to the outside world.

Since the beginning of this week, the junta has cut off dozens of phones used by leading activists of the 88 Generation Students group, senior NLD members and other prominent activists.

The junta’s anger isn’t really surprising, in view of the capability of a phone call to disclose official abuses, to report on the violent suppression of recent protest demonstrations and to carry the politically-provoking thoughts of leading activists.

The junta’s new clampdown on information exchange comes after prominent activists such as Su Su Nway, Nilar Thein and Htay Kywe of the 88 Generation Students group informed news agencies and reporters within and outside Burma about official excesses in breaking up the demonstrations.

Thanks to the information they passed on and the interviews they gave, the international community could be kept informed about what was really going on.

By cutting targeted phone lines, the regime has now made it even more difficult than ever to gather information about what is happening in Burma.

There was another purpose behind the regime action, which was to cut communications between the NLD headquarters, leading members of dissident groups in Rangoon and their branches and members based in other cities across the country.

The junta is probably also planning a cunning campaign in coming days, as the Monday deadline approaches for the authorities to apologize for their use of violence last month against protesting monks in Pakokku, some 370 km north of Rangoon. Several monks were beaten with rifle butts and bludgeons by security forces and junta-organized thugs.

An organization calling itself “The Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks” has enjoined monks to refuse alms offered by members of the military regime unless authorities apologize by September 17.

If no apology is forthcoming, the group says monks should stage a patam nikkujjana kamma, or boycott of alms, effectively denying the granting of merit, from members of the armed forces and their families.

History shows that the generals will take no heed of ultimatums. Instead, the junta will launch a crackdown on monks who participate in an alms boycott. Any violence against the monks will create public anger.

Those in the outside world who care about Burma are waiting with apprehension, but their ability to be fully informed about a possible new crisis is being hampered by the severance of important phone lines-which was probably ordered precisely to prevent the international community from being told about expected new human rights abuses by the regime.

It can’t be said with certainty that the severance of the phone lines represents a preparation for a new crackdown, but nor can that possibility be ruled out. We can only hope that it’s not the case and that no new violence against innocent civilians and monks is to be feared.