Aung San Suu Kyi, the living symbol of Burmese aspirations for democracy and a better life, will mark her 60th birthday tomorrow, still under house arrest, as Burma's ruling generals retreat to internecine power struggles that have strained their uneasy relations with the country's armed ethnic militias.
Tensions between the junta - dominated by members of the ethnic Burman majority - and long-rebellious ethnic minority groups have heightened since General Khin Nyunt, the former prime minister and military intelligence chief, was ousted in a palace coup in October. Rangoon, the capital, has also been on edge since three bombs exploded in up-market shopping areas last month, killing at least 23 people.
In spite of these upheavals, western analysts see no sign of political change or hope of imminent freedom for Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 10 of the past 16 years under house arrest.
"You have one of the most militarised societies, and one of the most entrenched military regimes in the world," said a Rangoon political analyst. "Just because they have trouble, which they have, doesn't mean they are going to change."
With their charismatic leader incommunicado, the National League for Democracy, which won a landslide 1990 election victory but was never allowed to take power, has no strategy to channel massive public discontent into pressure for change, diplomats say.
To break the deadlock, Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister, yesterday suggested the generals be granted immunity from prosecution to encourage them to step aside. "I don't believe in this idea that the moment a dictator gives up power you should charge him in court and throw him in jail," he told journalists in Kuala Lumpur. "That does not encourage [dictators] to give up power. Some guarantee must be given that no action will be taken against them."
The generals' fear of prosecution - especially for the slaughter of unarmed citizens in a 1988 unrest - is thought to be partly why they are clinging to power.
A western diplomat said any immunity deal could only be negotiated in a direct dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD, something in which the generals seem unwilling to engage.
"This is such a deadlock that any suggestions of any kind of way to move things forward is valuable," the diplomat said. "The NLD has been very willing to reach out to the generals and my gut feeling is that they are much more interested in solving the problem than settling scores. It's just we haven't seen any sign that the generals are willing to talk right now."
Instead, the junta appears preoccupied with internal rivalries. Gen Khin Nyunt and his two sons are reported to be on trial for economic crimes and other offences and at least 38 officers close to him have already been imprisoned. Meanwhile, the ceasefire agreements he negotiated with the country's ethnic militias have also started to unravel.
"Khin Nyunt promised things to the ethnic groups," the Rangoon analyst said. "He was making positive noises about 'We can work something out'. They believed they were getting somewhere and they were prepared to leave the National League for Democracy behind and make their own deals. Now a lot are wondering if they have been screwed."
Fighting recently resumed between the military and the Karen National Union, which has fought a bloody war of independence for decades, after the collapse of an oral agreement that had temporarily brought a fragile peace to south-eastern Burma. The Shan State Army North, another ethnic militia, recently pulled out of its formal, written ceasefire agreement with the junta and is now at war with another ethnic army allied to the junta.
Harn Yaung Hwe, director of the Europe-Burma Center in Brussels, said the tensions arose because "none of the things the ceasefire groups asked for were accepted" at the recent National Convention charged with drafting a new constitution as part of the junta's so-called "road map to democracy". The road map is set to one side, with the National Convention - dismissed by many as a publicity stunt to improve the regime's image - adjourned until November.
Amnesty International says the junta has stepped up its political persecution. Ten ethnic Shan politicians were arrested in February and several members of the NLD were given long prison sentences. At least four people, including two linked to military intelligence, are reported to have died in custody since January.
"Authorities have gone far beyond what may be reasonably interpreted as necessary for preserving national security, public order or morality in their imprisonment of political prisoners," Amnesty said this week.
Even Burma's fellow members of the Association of South East Asian Nations appear to be losing patience. Singapore and other regional governments said they expected Rangoon to forgo its turn to chair Asean, lest the association's image be tarnished.