A gradual build-up of international pressure to convince Burma's military rulers they should scale down repression and open dialogue with opposition groups is beginning to produce a response. It is pitifully slow and as yet lacking concrete results. But it seems clear that such pressure, alongside tensions within the regime that cracked down brutally on last month's massive protest movements, will ensure the regime cannot return to its previous unfettered dictatorship. It is essential the rest of the world, and neighbouring states especially, keep up efforts for change.
The military rulers have offered to open a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the main opposition leader, but with so many restrictive conditions that she has refused to take it up as yet. They have received the United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who encouraged this dialogue and may now have another visit from him following his tour of the region. They are now willing to receive another UN official, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro from the Human Rights Council, which has become more active on the issue.
Mr Gambari has had a lukewarm response at best from neighbouring governments. Burma's fellow-members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) resist direct interference in its internal affairs, despite their stiffer rhetoric about the repression and the need for political dialogue. They still want Burma to attend the Asean summit in Singapore next month at which the organisation will adopt a new charter, including a human rights commission. It is time they realised that their own political development as a regional organisation will require them to adopt more responsibility for individual behaviour within their growing collectivity. The Burmese events should provoke such a debate within Asean.
China and India are also major players in this drama. Interestingly China has been more sensitive than India about this. The United States and the European Union have pressed at the UN for economic sanctions directed against leading members of the regime and targeted economic activities. These can be made to bite much harder. The overwhelming need is to highlight the political and economic suffering of ordinary Burmese citizens and their heroism in resisting these conditions. The world's silence in previous years put them out of sight.