We can all appreciate the cute symmetry of 888. But, today's Olympic opening ceremony is poorly timed. August 8, 1988 is also the date of a brutal crackdown in Burma, which killed some 3000 people, mostly students and monks, and is a deep notch marking Burma's descent into hell since the military coup in 1962. On this day then, it's worth considering some truly extraordinary numbers.

Let's look first at the economy. The economy is indeed important because it was the devaluation of the Burmese kyat which led to the 1988 protests and also because an increase in fuel prices led to the Saffron Revolution demonstrations in September last year. In most places economics are important, but in Burma, it's a matter of life and death.

Burma has the 10th largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and the military Government is reported to receive some $US150 million ($A164 million) per month in gas export revenues alone.

These are good numbers, of course, the sort suggesting a thriving, albeit somewhat unbalanced, economy.

Yet, these upbeat statistics are mugged by a gang of less than savoury data. A look at just where that money goes reveals the shadowy truth.

Burma is, along with Somalia, the world's most corrupt country. The generals and their cronies have probably the world's stickiest fingers.

As the scandals over aid funding in the aftermath of the May cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy region tend to confirm, the Burmese military generals have zero scruples in diverting Burma's vast resources wealth into their own offshore accounts.

These diversions include buying themselves all the latest military toys. Between 1988 and 2006, the generals have spent about $25 million a month directly on military hardware.

Overall, the military spending money on itself accounts for some 40 per cent of total budgetary outlays, arguably the highest ratio in the world.

Meanwhile, around 3 per cent of Government spending is on education.

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to an education. The utter denial of full education in Burma is just a taste of the widespread human rights abuses Burmese people face every day. Burma's only tie to the UDHR is that it actively inverts its every principle.

Ninety per cent of Burmese live on less than $1.10 a day. Average household incomes are roughly 5 per cent less than the average cost to feed a family.

Children, as always, suffer most. In Chin state, for example, the rate of underweight children below the age of five was 60 per cent. In eastern Burma, one in five children die before their fifth birthday.

Many of these deaths are from malaria, an easily preventable disease. Burma has the second highest child mortality rate in Asia. Up to 150,000 children die every year, mainly from preventable diseases.

If Burmese kids make to a certain age, they are likely to be recruited for the military's deadly games. There are 70,000 child soldiers in Burma, the highest of anywhere in the world. Here, the children can spend their formative years fighting the world's longest running war, in the east of the country.

Should they survive this, they may, as adults, become one of hundreds of thousands of Burmese who flee the country every year to eke out an existence as refugees in neighbouring countries. In the decade to 2005, the flow of refugees from Burma increased 800 per cent. Burma is the world's third biggest source of refugees.

Or, if they chose to stay and their pain at this treatment turns vocal, they may become one of nearly 2000 political prisoners in Burma. There has been a 65 per cent increase of political prisoners in the last year.

In the last year, 60 prisoners have died in custody and since 1988 at least 137 political prisoners have died in jail.

The sum of all these numbers is more unrest, more demonstrations and, more struggle to achieve Burma's democratic destiny. Nearly 90 per cent of the population voted for democratic change the last time something like a free poll was held in Burma, in 1990. That's a number the military cannot deny. It's a number they fear.

But, while the world can organise a massive show like the Olympics, we cannot get together to solve problems like Burma's. Even an Olympic medal, it seems, has two sides.

Dr Thaung Htun is the Representative for United Nations Affairs of the Burma UN Service Office, National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, Burma's government-in-exile.