Room for optimism

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's cautionary reaction to the meeting between the Burmese (Myanmar) military and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is prompted by long experience of the junta.

Its capricious nature, and tendency to cancel all contact with outside envoys if news of it leaks out is reason enough not to get euphoric over recent developments.

Five supporters arrested with the National League for Democracy leader when she tried to leave for Rangoon by train in September were recently sentenced to 21 years in jail, which hardly suggests a softening of attitude.

Media attacks on the party at that time compared members with poisonous snakes locked up for their own good.

Nevertheless, now, perhaps, there is room for cautious optimism.

Global pressure has been increasing on the regime, not only because of the economic crisis, but through a series of damning reports by the United Nations, the World Bank, and a call by the International Labor Organization to its 174-member states and private companies to impose sanctions on the regime because of its use of forced labor.

UN accusations about rape, torture, mass arrests and summary executions have made the junta an uncomfortable bedfellow for ASEAN, which welcomed Burma into its ranks three years ago, claiming that international isolation simply increased the junta's intransigence.

Since then a few democratically-minded countries have urged a more critical approach to Burma, and there are practical reasons for this.

The organization is looking ahead to an important meeting with the European Union in 18 months, and it does not want a repeat of the embarrassment it suffered in Laos in December when every European foreign minister boycotted its meeting.

There are also suggestions that internal power struggles may be behind the decision to meet Aung San Suu Kyi; it is certainly not a sudden conversion to the merits of power sharing. Even if this is genuine progress, it is unlikely to yield immediate results that will answer the people's dreams of democracy and freedom.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong