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Junta in a time warp

Myanmar's military junta has done the expected unexpected. At a time when international pressure was mounting on the Burmese generals to release Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, they extended her detention by another year. An indication of how much the junta fears her freedom is clear from the fact she has spent 10 of the past 16 years in detention or under house arrest. It was in 1990 that her National League for Democracy won an overwhelming majority in a general election called by the military rulers. The junta annulled the polls and detained Ms. Suu Kyi and her party leaders to quell the pro-democracy uprising. Since then, it has been a story of detention alternating with house arrest for the Nobel laureate. She has taken it in her stride; at 60, she remains totally committed to winning democratic rights for her people through non-violent means. Lacking a fig leaf of legitimacy, the junta refuses to initiate a substantive dialogue with her to restore democracy and end military rule. Its decade-long pretext has been the national convention to draft a new constitution for Myanmar.

Freedom for Ms. Suu Kyi would have won for the generals some goodwill in a benighted situation. There were repeated suggestions from the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the international community, and Myanmar's immediate neighbours that the junta should do the right thing. As May 27 approached, signalling the end of a three-year period of detention, the expectation grew in Myanmar and elsewhere in the world that Ms. Suu Kyi would be released. But the informal talks seem to have foundered on the conditions for release; and with no agreement on those conditions, the generals ended up extending her detention by another year. Going by their track record, it is likely that the military rulers wanted her to be confined to the capital Yangon and also keep away from political activity — two basic issues on which the Nobel laureate can never compromise. So once again the junta has defied the world. The U.N. and the international community have very little to show for their 16 years of effort to make the military rulers see reason and commit themselves to some kind of road map for the restoration of democracy. Some western countries, notably the United States, have tried out the path of sanctions but with little effect. Myanmar under the junta has faced such isolation that sanctions seem to make no difference. After admitting Myanmar as a member, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has attempted, on and off, to nudge the military leadership towards a dialogue for national reconciliation — but this strategy has not worked either. The U.N. must go back to the basics and rethink what needs to be done about a situation where brutal military power, a no-change autocratic mindset, and unenlightened autarky have combined to create a state that lives in a time warp.

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