GRAPE VINE

More a hinderance

Source : Far Eastern Economic Review

With Burma's pro-democracy movement in shambles, it's amazing that activists like Brian Joseph insist on sticking with an approach that has been such a complete failure [Junta, Not Suu Kyi, Bars the Progress, the 5th column, June 22]. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party have got virtually everything they've asked for diplomatic support, economic sanctions, boycotts, United Nations resolutions, extensive media coverage -- yet none of it has worked.

The only result has been more tension and a political backlash. The National League for Democracy has been marginalized, the reformers in the government have been undermined, the United States and Britain have lost almost all their influence on the regime and the country appears headed back into isolation.

Clearly, Suu Kyi and her supporters vastly overestimated the impact of world opinion and foreign investment on a regime that has survived for a decades without either. They have waged a moral crusade with symbolic gestures, rather than developing a pragmatic strategy for change. And now, having dug themselves into a hole, all they can think to do is to keep digging deeper. No wonder the world is looking for a more productive approach.

Stephen Brookes, Washington