This will sound like appeasement, a strange reward for continued oppression

TO BE NOTED:

"Burma: aid not sanctions

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• Editorial
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 May 2009 22.00 BST
• Article history

A year after the cyclone which devastated southern Burma, the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was back yesterday in Rangoon's infamous Insein prison facing her accusers again. Having spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention without trial, the charges the Nobel peace prize laureate faces could be dismissed as a technicality. But that would be to misjudge the iron purpose of her enemies.

Neither the cyclone which killed over 140,000 people, the international outrage which followed, nor the 130,000 survivors who struggle on aid rations in makeshift shelters, will divert the junta of General Than Shwe from its purpose – holding rigged elections next year. The last time a free election was allowed by Than Shwe's predecessor Ne Win, Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 392 of 492 seats. So there is little prospect, as some had hoped, of the junta releasing Ms Suu Kyi from the house arrest in which she has spent the last six years. Instead, another prison sentence awaits and Ms Suu Kyi's isolation will be as profound as that of the regime.

Just as it was in 1988 when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother only to find herself in the middle of an uprising, Ms Suu Kyi is an accidental heroine. She was charged yesterday with violating the terms of her house arrest, as a result of the bizarre actions of a total stranger. One of her lawyers, Kyi Win, described John Yettaw, who swam across a lake to her house, as a wretched American fool. No one seemed to know why he did it; even his stepson was clueless, saying there was no political motivation.

Harmless or not, the military junta has the pretext it has been waiting for. Ms Suu Kyi, aged 63 and in bad health, could face another five years in prison. Her incarceration will renew calls for more sanctions on Burma, oblivious to the fact that this regime thrives on isolation. More than 20 years of sanctions (which the EU extended recently) have merely ensured the Burmese get a fraction of the aid per head that is given to Sudan.

With plentiful supplies of teak and gas, and big neighbours like India and China vying for contracts, the junta has everything it needs. It certainly does not need the support of its population, merely its acquiescence. But isolation has only fuelled the problems of the Burmese people. The only effective response to the continuing catastrophe of last year's cyclone and to the plight of Ms Suu Kyi is to keep the foot of aid in the door – and even to stick it further in. This will sound like appeasement, a strange reward for continued oppression – but not to the farmers whose water buffaloes were drowned by the cyclone and whose rice yields are down to a third because of salinated water. They need aid, not sanctions."