Burmese Justice

The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com

AUGUST 13, 2009

Smarter sanctions against the Burmese generals after their latest sentence of Suu Kyi.

Tuesday's sentencing by a Burmese court of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor is a fresh reminder of the ruling junta's cruelty. That the sentence was then magnanimously reduced to an 18-month extension of her house arrest is a reminder of its cynicism.

Ms. Suu Kyi is Burma's rightful prime minister, having been elected in a vote overturned by the junta in 1990. The latest verdict ensures that the regime will get through parliamentary elections scheduled for next year without her participation. The junta's hope is to generate a chimera of democracy on the model of Hun Sen's regime in neighboring Cambodia.

The ploy might even work. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted last month at the possibility of "investment" and "other exchanges" for Burma in exchange for Ms. Suu Kyi's freedom. Later this week, Virginia Democrat Jim Webb will travel to Burma, the first visit by a U.S. Senator in over a decade. Not a bad photo-op for a regime that last year impounded humanitarian aid for the more than 100,000 victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Burma's junta has mostly shrugged off Western sanctions thanks to billions in sales of natural gas to China and Thailand, along with sales of timber and gems. Some of those sanctions have achieved little except to further impoverish the Burmese people and should be lifted. But financial sanctions targeting the junta and its associated businesses are more effective and could be tightened. No less valuable are Burmese language broadcasts of Radio Free Asia, which are vital in breaking the regime's monopoly on information.

The revelation earlier this year that North Korea is supplying arms to Burma while Russia is supplying nuclear technology means that the junta is becoming a menace to more than its own people. For the sake of Ms. Suu Kyi and every other imprisoned Burmese dissident, we hope the Obama Administration doesn't conclude from this that engagement is the best policy.