Keep Up the Pressure on Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the democratic forces in Myanmar, formerly Burma, held a three-day political conference over the weekend and only 18 members of her National League for Democracy showed up. The country’s ruling military junta had arrested 262 other delegates and party members. But what the sessions lacked in numbers they achieved in symbolic challenge to the military regime.

The arrests drew immediate condemnations from Washington and, significantly, Tokyo, which demanded the release of the delegates and warned that continuing arrests could discourage Japanese investment. The Japanese have been major players in Myanmar.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council, as the junta calls itself, has refused to let Suu Kyi’s National League convene Parliament since the party’s landslide election victory six years ago promised democracy for the Southeast Asian country for the first time in decades. Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, was placed under house arrest. Only last year was she released.

In concluding the National League conference on Tuesday, Suu Kyi disclosed plans to draft an alternative constitution to one being drawn by a junta panel. She declared she was willing to talk to the military, however, and said its officers “should help bring about democracy.”

But the regime, financed in part by drug-producing and trafficking operations and the business investments of foreign companies, has little reason to deal. Foreign governments should continue to press the generals to ease their political repression or risk killing the golden goose of investment.