This blog post originally appeared on The Hill's Congress Blog.

Traveling in Burma last month, it wasn’t hard to see that things really are changing in this beautiful but troubled country.

“….and that building, that was Yangon University,” our host said, pointing to a massive, empty, and abandoned building. He went on to tell us that following the country’s 1988 coup, Burma’s military rulers began to see universities and their students as the major source of political unrest. As a result, they introduced a “distance learning” system to keep students from congregating, protesting…and in the end, learning. This approach has been devastating for the country’s growth and development.

As I write this in the Burmese capital of Yangon, the city is still buzzing from last week’s historic visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Despite the hope and excitement her trip brought to this isolated country, fear and impunity persists in Burma’s conflict zones. The latest region to erupt into conflict is the northern border state of Kachin, where my colleague and I traveled last week.

Monday’s early morning attack on the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) came as a shock to the humanitarian community – shock quickly followed by concerns UNHCR might be forced to halt its important work assisting displaced Afghans.

The initial car bomb destroyed a shared wall between UNHCR’s guesthouse and the compound of International Relief and Development (IRD), a nonprofit aid provider. The attackers then entered UNHCR’s compound and killed three of its guards. While Afghan National Police (ANP) eventually responded, hours went by before the attackers were killed.