The junta in Burma has intensified a purge of top officials with experience in international affairs, dimming prospects for democratization in the nation, diplomats and officials in Bangkok and Rangoon say.
The latest dismissals follow the removal last month of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who was viewed as a relative pragmatist on questions ranging from peacemaking with ethnic rebels to the future of the country's imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.
A diplomat based in Burma's capital city, Rangoon, said the junta had toughened its position and was effectively thumbing its nose at the international community, which has pressed the Burmese regime to open a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy. She remains under house arrest following an attack on her convoy in May last year in which scores of her supporters were killed or wounded
Khin Nyunt, who also served as chief of military intelligence, had been viewed as possibly promoting a softer line toward Aung San Suu Kyi.
With Khin Nyunt now removed and reportedly under house arrest in Rangoon, two of his allies were "permitted to retire" on Nov. 5, the government announced. Dismissed as interior minister was Colonel Tin Hlaing, whose post entailed regular contacts with international drug agency officials. The dismissed labor minister, Tin Winn, is a former ambassador to Washington and Bangkok.
The two were replaced by allies of Senior General Than Shwe, the top leader of the military junta, as was Win Aung, whose dismissal as foreign minister in early October kicked off the current round of purges.
Another hard-liner was named to replace Khin Nyunt. The new prime minister, Lieutenant General Soe Win, was denounced by the U.S. State Department last month as "reportedly directly involved in the decision to carry out the brutal attack on Aug San Suu Kyi and her convoy on May 30th, 2003."
The purge has sparked concern in the region that Burma is moving toward stiffer authoritarian rule even as it prepares to take up the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2006.
The arrival of Khin Nyunt as prime minister last year had been seen as possibly providing an opening toward greater democracy in the run-up to that date.
Now, with his dismissal, a diplomat in Bangkok said, there is no prospect that Aung San Suu Kyi will be released.
"I fear this is the end of the road," at least for the moment, he said.
The diplomat, commenting that the outside world had largely ignored the attack on Aung San Suu Kyi last year, said the generals might have decided that they did not need Khin Nyunt's perceived pragmatism and could pursue a hard line without consequences.
Because Burma is a tightly controlled police state, and journalists are rarely allowed in, it is difficult to verify the situation inside the country. But by all accounts, the wave of dismissals appears aimed at consolidating the power of Than Shwe.
Officially, Khin Nyunt's removal was first described as a resignation for health reasons and then as a dismissal for corruption. Last week, a junta member, General Thura Shwe Mahn, said Khin Nyunt had threatened the unity of the armed forces by starting an investigation of regional commanders, The Associated Press reported.
As one of three generals at the top of the junta, officially the State Peace and Development Council, Khin Nyunt had impressed outsiders as relatively pragmatic, with at least some concern for the international community.
Upon becoming prime minister in August 2003, he unveiled a seven-step "road map to democracy," including a proposal for a constitutional convention that would lead to new elections, although doubts were expressed about its sincerity. He was also the force behind cease-fires with 17 ethnic rebel groups, which form part of Burma's opposition.
A United Nations official in Bangkok, who like other officials interviewed here asked not to be identified, said that Khin Nyunt, while no moderate, had been tactically astute and may have argued within the junta against killing or exiling Aung San Suu Kyi. If so, he warned, that restraining voice is not there now.
Burma, which has been under military rule since 1962, has been sharply criticized for its human rights record and its detention of political prisoners, who currently number more than 1,400, according to rights monitors based in Thailand. The country was scorned internationally when the junta annulled the results of parliamentary elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party in 1990.
The daughter of a slain independence hero, Aung San Suu Kyi is the linchpin of Burma's opposition and may be the only leader who can garner support of both the pro-democracy advocates and the ethnic insurgents who make up the opposition.
Zin Linn, a Burmese journalist who spent nine years as a political prisoner and who is now information director for the opposition National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, agreed with diplomats that the release of Aung San Suu Kyi now appears impossible any time soon.