Burma's unfinished revolution

A YEAR AGO, Buddhist monks, students, democracy activists, and fed-up citizens in Burma were shot, beaten, and jailed for expressing their grievances peacefully. The brutality of the ruling junta provoked a brief flurry of outrage around the world, but China, India, and Thailand, the current chair of ASEAN, went right on currying favor with the junta, and all too soon the indignation subsided - at least until the Burmese generals withheld humanitarian relief from victims of Cyclone Nargis last May.

But some voices of conscience have not forgotten Burma. On what they call the "dark anniversary" of last year's Saffron Revolution, eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Dalai Lama, have called for "true democracy" in Burma, appealing for the release of their sister laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and expressing solidarity with all people "yearning for freedom in a nation that has itself become a prison."

The generals have set in motion their own sham roadmap to democracy. But this transparent scheme for perpetuating the junta's hold on power satisfies only those commercial clients and geopolitical advantage-seekers who have an interest in being satisfied. The generals' regional partners remain unflustered that Transparency International, the organization that rates 180 countries for their relative degree of corruption, has just reported that only Somalia comes out worse on the list than Burma under the generals.

President Bush, encouraged by Laura Bush, who met recently with refugees on the Thailand side of the Burmese border, has said all the right things about Burma. The next president will have to persuade China, India, and Thailand to join in pressuring the junta to free Suu Kyi and permit a genuine transition to democracy.