On Myanmarese elections

Seldom have hopes been raised so high and dashed so hard as the Burmese elections of 1990. Ten years ago last Saturday, the nation turned out en masse to open what they hoped was a new era of democracy. Burmese voted overwhelmingly for a new parliament. The army was defeated, the National League for Democracy won.

In the decade since, Myanmarese have watched the dictatorship smash their hopes and votes to smithereens. The elected parliament never met. The leader of the winning party, Aung San Suu Kyi, was imprisoned in her home. She had urged the Burmese to go to the polls and vote for a democratic regime. There are few crimes more serious in Myanmar, then or today.

The junta has made Myanmar the poorest state in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, offering no hope out of poverty. It has made Burma an international pariah, directly helping to traffic drugs to Thailand and the rest of the world. It has brutalized its own people with imprisonment, torture and forced labor on a scale seldom seen in the least-civilized nations.

It is time the regime respected the demand of its people for a democratic and accountable government. The form of government is the business of citizens. The people of Myanmar spoke a decade ago. Voters had clear choices, and they made them. The Rangoon regime will get no respect until it makes clear and solid progress toward implementing those choices.

-- Bangkok Post, Thailand.