AS THUGGISH as strongman Robert Mugabe has been in refusing to respect the results of Zimbabwe's election in March, that country almost seems an open society in comparison with Burma, which suffers under a military junta that runs one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
The leader of Zimbabwe's opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, was at least able to contest the election. He could speak to his people and the rest of the world. But almost five years after a bungled attempt on her life, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, without the right to speak or see her doctor. Though her party, the National League for Democracy, won over 80 percent of seats in a 1990 parliamentary election the generals ignored, she cannot even vote in a May 10 referendum on a sham constitution designed to lend a patina of legitimacy to Burma's narco-trafficking generals.
After the regime's enforcers assaulted and killed Buddhist monks and others protesting in solidarity with them, the United Nations and regional organizations sought to coax the generals toward dialogue and political reconciliation with Suu Kyi and her party. But during his last two visits, the UN special envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, was ostentatiously snubbed by the boss of all bosses in Burma, General Than Shwe.
Now more than ever, democratic nations should use all their leverage to get the generals to release all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, and commit to a democratic transition.
As Human Rights Watch observed in a report released Thursday, arrests of democratic activists, bans on political gatherings, media censorship, ubiquitous spies and informers, and the lack of an independent election commission will make the referendum a travesty. And the constitution on the ballot is nothing but a fig leaf to cloak continued military dictatorship.
The European Union took a step in the right direction Tuesday by calling for an international arms embargo on the junta. The EU should also enforce banking sanctions against the regime. The United States, which maintains banking sanctions, should join the call for an arms embargo.
As Bishop Tutu of South Africa has often said, Suu Kyi and the people of Burma merit the same kind of international solidarity as the victims of apartheid.
