The sudden ouster of Burma's prime minister, General Khin Nyunt, has been lamented by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and by the State Department as a blow to hopes for democratic reform in Burma. These expressions of disappointment reflect an illusory belief that Burma's dictatorship might have implemented the "road to democracy" that Khin Nyunt had touted as a reason not to treat the junta as a pariah regime.
Khin Nyunt, a former head of the ruling junta's military intelligence branch, can be described as a moderate only by comparison to the man who had him placed under house arrest, the junta's leader, General Than Shwe. By all accounts, Than Shwe wants no talk of releasing the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest or her imprisoned colleagues in the National League for Democracy, which won 80 percent of seats in a 1990 election that the junta has refused to honor.
Khin Nyunt had a shrewd grasp of the junta's need to feed a story to the world - particularly to Burma's neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean - that the generals are ready for dialogue with Suu Kyi.
If the purging of Khin Nyunt means that the junta's most thuggish elements have taken total control not only of the military's narcotics and gem-smuggling rackets but also of government policy, the people of Burma are likely to suffer even more forced labor, impoverishment, drug trafficking and repression.
At the same time, the removal of Khin Nyunt amounts to a humiliating slap in the face for Asean. The 10-member regional grouping had dealt with him as the enlightened face of the regime. Adopting the pretense that the junta was really serious about Khin Nyunt's road map to democracy, Asean has foolishly resisted U.S. and European Union pressure to demand that the junta open a genuine political dialogue with Suu Kyi and her party. Now Asean faces the embarrassment of having Burma's generals assume the rotating chairmanship of the association in 2006.
This is a time for careful but firm action by Burma's neighbors and the United Nations. A sound bipartisan U.S. policy of sanctions on the junta and support for Burma's democrats is already in place; any rash unilateral American move to further penalize the regime could endanger Suu Kyi. But Annan ought to call a Security Council meeting on Burma, since the spillover of narcotics, AIDS and refugees threatens regional security. Asean should suspend the junta until it permits true democratic reform. And it should make clear that if any harm comes to Suu Kyi, Burma will be expelled from the organization.
Time has run out on the delusions clung to by Burma's neighbors.