Winds of Change in Burma, Too : * Now the Real Work Begins on a New Democratic Constitution

If winds of democratic change are sweeping the globe, Myanmar, better known as Burma, feels a lone breeze. Thirty years after their last multiparty election, the Burmese voted May 27 to replace a brutal military regime with a parliamentary democracy. The ruling junta, the State Law and Order Council, promised to honor the National League for Democracy’s victory, but not until a new constitution is drawn up, a process that could take two years.

Tens of thousands have fled the iron-fisted junta to neighboring Thailand. Political violence has claimed 6,000 lives since 1988. Some 400 League members are imprisoned. One of them, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is the hands-down choice as the next head of state. Burma is also the world’s largest exporter of opium, and some military officers are reputed to be traffickers. Yet the junta was surprised that the League won two thirds of the vote--even among the military rank and file.

A U.S. Senate trade bill encompassing an embargo is now before a conference committee. The Bush Administration opposes the bill, arguing that sanctions will not be effective because only $17 million worth of trade is involved.

But the generals are sensitive to international pressure. They allowed the balloting partly because of a unanimous April Senate vote to embargo Burmese imports and a United Nations condemnation of their abysmal human-rights record. American trade with Burma is a drop in the bucket of both country’s economies--but the symbolic weight of sanctions is far greater.

Further, the United States should appeal to Burma’s principal trading partners--China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and the Soviet Union--to urge Rangoon to agree to a swift and peaceful transition to an elected government.

Adopting formal sanctions against Burma will put the United States on record as having acted in favor of human rights and against corruption and narcotics trafficking. Perhaps it will influence the junta to recognize that the Burmese people are committed to a return to democracy.