Where Is She?

Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page B06

SCARCELY A POLITICIAN or business executive in the world doesn't relish the chance to appear in public with the great Nelson Mandela. But during Mr. Mandela's long years in a South African prison, he had many fewer friends among the world's powerful. This comes to mind because another national leader of comparable fortitude and magnanimity has been captive since May 30, and you would be hard-pressed to find much evidence that her many supposed friends around the world are doing everything possible to win her release. If Aung San Suu Kyi one day is freed to lead her country, Burma, to democracy, there will be no shortage of people seeking to recall how they were on her side all along. But the moment to step forward is now.

Her odious captors of course are primarily responsible. The corrupt military generals who rule Burma have loathed Aung San Suu Kyi for a long time, certainly since her National League for Democracy won four-fifths of parliamentary seats in a 1990 election. The junta, shocked at this reflection of its own unpopularity, nullified the election. It has kept Burma's 50 million people locked in a
stultifying dictatorship ever since. Last May the regime sent a band of vigilantes to attack Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters as they traveled on a provincial road, killing and injuring scores. The NLD leader has been confined ever since, allowed one visit with a United Nations representative and two with the International Red Cross. When the U.S. State Department said it believed she has stopped eating in protest, one of the junta's diplomats, ambassador to Britain Kyaw Win, responded with typical finesse and sensitivity: "How could anybody know that she's on hunger strike when you don't even know where she is?"

The Bush administration has expressed concern and called for her release. But that's not enough. On July 28 Mr. Bush signed into law a ban on imports from Burma that Congress, led by Republican Sen.Mitch McConnell and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, had approved by overwhelming margins. He should use that congressional mandate to push other nations to act. Where are Aung San Suu Kyi'sfellow Nobel peace laureate Kofi Annan and the U.N. Security Council?
What action will the European Union take? And will Burma's neighbors and fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations allow their own reputations to be sullied by this criminal regime? The ruling generals ought to know that if anything happens to Aung San Suu Kyi, they will be pariahs throughout the world for as long as they live.

Mr. Bush is confronted with many complex foreign policy challenges: countries where the line between good guys and bad guys is fuzzy, failed states with no one qualified to lead, dictatorships without civil institutions ready to step into the breach. Burma is a challenge too, but there's nothing complex about the choices: It is a resource-rich nation with a democratic party and a leader already
anointed by a vast majority of the people. She must be released, and allowed to take the position to which she was elected.

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