No compromise on Burma

The current regime in Rangoon is complicit in narcotics trafficking, ethnic cleansing, forced labor, gruesome abuse of ethnic minorities, and the violent suppression of free speech and political opposition.

In response to a deliberate massacre of fellow democrats traveling last May with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the Bush administration last July signed into law tough sanctions that ban imports from Burma. The House hearings were in preparation for renewal of those sanctions.

Without mincing his words, Lorne Craner, the State Department's assistant secretary for human rights, told the lawmakers that notwithstanding hints about democratization dropped by the junta's chairman, Than Shwe, and his accomplices, the outlaw regime in Rangoon has not taken steps that would justify the lifting of sanctions. "For all the hype about a `road map for democracy,' nothing has changed for the better for democracy or human rights in Burma," Craner said.

The junta has intimated it might release Suu Kyi from house arrest in April. This would be a gesture the people of Burma would welcome, as would everyone around the world who cherishes human rights and democracy. Suu Kyi narrowly escaped being killed in the assault that the regime staged last May. Over the years she has accepted painful personal sacrifices for the sake of democracy in Burma -- without ever deviating from her devotion to the principles of nonviolence.

As much as her compatriots long for the release of Suu Kyi, however, that will not by itself be enough to justify the lifting of US sanctions on the junta. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won 80 percent of the seats in Parliament in a 1990 election -- a popular verdict the military regime still refuses to accept. Until Than Shwe and the other uniformed thugs on the junta complete what assistant secretary Craner called "an irreversible transition to democracy," sanctions should remain in place.

Suu Kyi's fellow Nobel peace prize winner Desmond Tutu has written: "As in South Africa, the people and legitimate leaders of Burma have called for sanctions . . . To dismantle apartheid took not only commitment, faith and hard work, but also intense international pressure and sanctions."

Tutu's wisdom should be heeded not only by Washington but also by the European Union, which is currently considering targeted sanctions on timber and gems, direct sources of junta revenue.