(Bangkok: Roxanne Toh: Interpress Service: 21-11-03)

Six months after the violent attack on Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her group, a range of different strategies on Burma, including sanctions by foreign governments, remain -- but where these are leading to remains uncertain.

The U.S. government has imposed probably among the toughest measures after the May 30 attack on Suu Kyi's party. In July, it banned Burmese imports to the United States, froze the U.S. assets of the military junta and imposed a visa ban on junta member, relatives and associates.

This month, under pressure from activists and the British government, British American Tobacco withdrew its subsidiary, Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar Pte Ltd in Burma.

U.N. human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who visited Burma this month, again urged the release of some 1,300 political prisoners in the country. Meantime, Suu Kyi still refuses to be freed from house arrest if colleagues who were taken into custody with her in the May 30 attack, blamed on pro-Rangoon thugs, are not freed.

Still, life - and business - continues as usual in Burma. Recent events also reflect how governments like Thailand believe that western sanctions on Burma do not work.

On Nov. 12, the leaders of Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand met in Pagan, Burma to "increase competitiveness and generate greater growth in the region" and generate investments. It also constitutes Thailand's Economic Cooperation Strategy, and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says it is based on the "four nations, one economy" concept. Looking back, many find themselves asking what has changed in the last six months in Burma, despite some tough actions against the South-east Asian country.

The issue of "hard" and "soft" sanctions is among the issues most debated in relation to pushing democracy in Burma, where Thailand has been pushing for a 'road map' to political change. "People talk a lot about sanctions - sanctions haven't worked, pressure doesn't work but people talk very vaguely, as if they were real, hard sanctions," said Harn Yawnghwe, director of the Brussels-based European Office for the Development of Democracy in Burma. "The only real sanction I would say in the world would be the (that of) U.S.A.," he said at a seminar on European Union-Burmese links at Chulalongkorn University here.

The EU itself has taken a firm position against Burma. It adopted a common position in 1996 - a "soft" sanction as Hawn Yawnghwe defined - while confirming existing sanctions like an arms embargo and suspension of a defence alliance. The EU also placed a visa ban on the military government and regime, security officers and all of their family members. No governmental visits to Burma were allowed as well. This was expanded in 1998, when the ban included transit visas and Burma's tourism administration. Yet Harn Yawnghwe himself said: "In reality, these sanctions are nothing. It's just saying that we are not happy with the situation."

Even the U.N. joint efforts with the U.S. government and the EU to pressure the Burmese government to release Suu Kyi faces challenges from Thailand, China, as well as other South-east Asian countries that offer them constant military and economic support. Such support has "undermined attempts to send a clear message to Burma's military rulers that it is time to make way for an elected civilian government," Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division said, even though months earlier members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) had also called on Rangoon to free Suu Kyi.

The grants and loans that Thailand would provide under the Economic Cooperation Strategy discussed in the Pagan summit is welcome news for Burma, since sanctions have caused the accumulation of "huge debts" over the years. The English-language daily 'The Nation' reported that Rangoon had "earlier expressed a preference for financial aid". Likewise, Harn Yawnghwe asks if these investments would be entirely independent and free of any relations with the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Cooperation - solely owned by the military.

Thaksin, whose government is hosting a forum of the much-touted 'road map' this year to let western nations "better understand" Burma, said after the Pagan meeting: "Burmese officials sent a strong signal about national reconciliation. I heard it with my own ears." One Thai rights activist, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview: "Just when you think things are starting to build up with these actions - sanctions, pullouts - something like the Pagan meeting happens." "Sometimes there seems to be so much happening, but is there really movement to democracy? " he asked.

Choombhon Lertrathakarn, a senior specialist in the Thai National Security Council's international security department, says that Burma's neighbours remain ready to help when democratic change does happen there. "If you have reform and you move towards democracy, we will help with the economic development," stated Choombhon, adding that Thailand might even have some lessons for Burma given its past rule under the military. However, he said there was a need for a socially "open society" in Burma, where "you have more mobility within..."

Analysts say the picture in Burma remains full of questions, not least around the 'road map' that Thailand is promoting as a seven-step regional approach that would lead to elections. One participant in the seminar suggested the 'road map' include respecting the results of the 1990 elections, which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won. But Chomboon points out that insisting on this - a key demand of the Burmese pro-democracy movement and activists because the junta did not respect its results -- would be a "roadblock" instead of a road map.

Harn Yawnghwe adds that the future is also likely to bring more pressure from the EU as it expands in membership from 15 to 25 next year. This is because eight out of these ten countries, including the Czech Republic and Poland, were once communist or totalitarian nations, which have experienced transitions to democracy and are "very strong on human rights and democracy", he said.