Tough task needs delicate touch
NO ONE doubts that the slight, almost bird-like leader of the Burmese opposition movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, has a will of steel.
Her courage was displayed when she emerged as the charismatic leader of the democracy movement that swept the country in 1988. During the upheavals - when the future of the military junta looked shaky - she could coolly face down soldiers blocking the road.
Now she must finesse something as delicate as the orchids she likes to wear in her hair - trying to persuade the military regime to talk without demonstrations that could be brutally crushed.
Since her release four months ago from six years of house arrest, her gentle probing for a reaction from a notoriously obdurate clique of generals has stirred little more than a rather smug item in the state-controlled press about awkward people blocking the traffic.
This was a snide reference to her still well-attended weekend addresses at the front of her house.
The walkout last week of her National League for Democracy from the Constitutional Convention - and subsequently its official ejection - merely puts a formal gloss on the snub.
The reconvened meeting will now move to meet the military's demand that it produce a constitution enshrining the Army's dominance over whatever form of parliament it eventually allows.
Releasing even the daughter of the revered independence hero Aung San was hardly a big risk when no one can express public disapproval of the regime for fear of their liberty or their jobs.
Many pundits say the State Law and Order Restoration Council's strategy of letting their most popular opponent swing in the wind has so far succeeded.
It has, after all, taken the edge off international loathing and brought the country nearer to the foreign aid and loans without which the sorely needed refurbishment of the meagre national infrastructure will not take place.
But the democratic doomsayers who suggest the opposition's game is up are probably underestimating how far the generals are from long-term stability.
They are reviled by the impoverished population for their incompetence and, in rural areas, their brutality and use of forced labour.
Their hopes of buying off the public with economic growth will fail if this benefits only a crowd of hangers-on.
No one suggests the military will fall overnight - Ms Aung San Suu Kyi has emphasised a revolution takes time. But she has said: 'That does not mean I expect them to wait until the next century.' She also said: 'Patience is a virtue - but not indefinite patience. Indefinite patience can deteriorate into passivity.' Her weekend speeches have become noticeably tougher in the past few weeks and she may try to move around the country, giving 'impromptu' talks to remind everyone of who won 80 per cent of the vote in the 1990 election the military subsequently ignored.
The opposition has a hard path to travel, though no one should ever have imagined it was going to be easy.
All that can be said with some confidence this weekend is that 'the Lady', as all Burma calls her, will not give up.
