Myanmar's military leaders say that elections next year will bring change to the impoverished nation. Their sentencing of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday to a further 18 months of house arrest states otherwise. Their intention, it seems, is to maintain their grip on power, not better the lives of Myanmese. Only by freeing the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the more than 2,000 other critics and opponents in prison can they begin to live up to their claims.

Ms Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 19 years in prison or under house arrest. Her 'crime' was to lead her National League for Democracy to victory in junta-sanctioned elections in 1990. The military did not honour the result and has since hounded its opponents. For all its promises to introduce what it calls a 'road map to democracy', the manner in which Ms Suu Kyi was charged and tried shows it has not changed its ways.

An American had made an uninvited visit to her home by swimming across a lake. The military guards the house, yet it was Ms Suu Kyi and her two woman companions who were found to be at fault. After a three-month trial during which they were denied proper legal representation and the foreign media was allowed only occasional observance, the judge handed down a verdict of three years' jail with hard labour for Ms Suu Kyi. To prove the politicised and bogus nature of the trial, a statement from junta leader Than Shwe was read out five minutes later reducing the sentence to one of 18 months' house arrest to 'maintain peace and tranquillity'.