Democracy party in Myanmar still a one-woman show

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The impotence of the party that has long led Myanmar's democracy movement was on full display last week as Myanmar's military junta officially stepped down - and replaced itself with a "civilian" government made up of ex-generals.

"The State Peace and Development Council is officially dissolved," state television reported on Wednesday, referring to the clutch of generals that has been in power since a 1988 coup. The dissolution was reportedly ordered by Senior General Than Shwe, who has wielded absolute power since 1992, and who will now play an unclear behind-the-scenes role.

The National League for Democracy was neither represented in the country's new military-dominated parliament as the new government was formed, nor willing to mobilize its supporters onto the streets outside. Instead, it remains trapped in stasis, watching helplessly as the country undergoes a transition that (depending on who you ask) is either an awkward first step toward genuine reform or a cynical move by the generals to entrench their hold on power.

Twenty-one years ago, the NLD's Rangoon headquarters was very nearly the vortex of a peaceful revolution. Today, it feels more like a museum to those thrilling times than the hub of any current threat to the generals' plans.

On the upper floor of the two-storey shack, a clutch of men in their 70s and 80s - known as the "uncles" of the NLD - sit on wooden folding chairs and peer through eyeglasses at a pile of printed-off e-mails. There was no computer in sight when The Globe and Mail visited earlier this year, and business with the outside world was conducted via an ancient General Electric alarm clock/telephone that sat on the desk beside a stack of phone books. (A computer has apparently since been installed, albeit with an Internet connection so slow as to make even checking e-mail a time-consuming endeavour.)

The only thing that changed with the times were the pictures of the movement's iconic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. In the photograph closest to her office, she's captured as she was when she first won over the crowds of antigovernment protesters in 1988, her eyes glowing with idealism. Next comes a painting, perhaps done during her long years of house arrest, of her smiling gracefully from under a bamboo hat. Third, and largest, is Ms. Suu Kyi in November of last year on the day of her most recent release from house arrest, her face now lined, wisdom and wariness evident in her gaze.

There's little question that the NLD remains a one-woman show, with all of its hope resting on the narrow shoulders of the woman who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Those expectations may prove too high for a 65-year-old woman - whom The Globe and Mail learned is in frail health - to meet or bear.

Four months on from the euphoria that surrounded her release, the "peaceful revolution" Ms. Suu Kyi called for seems no closer. The woman most here simply call The Lady has been left on the political sidelines as the country's long-ruling generals instituted the new system they call "discipline-flourishing democracy," beginning with elections last year that the NLD boycotted as a sham.

Few see the junta's official disbanding as anything but a cosmetic change, at least in terms of its short-term implications. Thein Sein, the new president, is the junta's former prime minister and a protégé of Gen. Than Shwe, who is expected to continue to wield wide influence over nearly every aspect of the country's affairs.

Ms. Suu Kyi - who still insists the military should honour her party's 1990 election win - has condemned the moves in her meetings with foreign diplomats and journalists as a "parody of democracy," but her message primarily reaches an outside audience. On the ground in this impoverished and repressed country (which is also known as Burma), The Lady is almost as invisible now as she was while confined to her family's crumbling lakeside mansion in Rangoon for 15 of the past 21 years.

Her lack of visibility is partly due to the generals' efforts to marginalize her - associates say it's not clear how much she can do or say without being rearrested - as well as Ms. Suu Kyi's own decision to take a more cautious approach in dealing with the authorities than she did during previous periods of freedom.

She has also been hampered by a string of illnesses that left her bedridden for several weeks in late January and early February.

In a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail after she returned to work in February, Ms. Suu Kyi acknowledged the first weeks after her house arrest ended were "far too hectic" and that she needed to "keep a sensible schedule" from now on.

Ms. Suu Kyi's illnesses have robbed her and the NLD of much of the momentum they gained from her release, which was followed by a series of enthralling speeches in Rangoon. But she has yet to test the boundaries of her new freedom by travelling beyond the city.

"We are trying to go out to the countryside, but we have to take care. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could be assassinated at any time, ever in Rangoon. We have to think twice before she goes to the countryside," said Win Tin, a senior leader of the NLD who spent 19 years in prison before his own release in 2008.

Mr. Win Tin said the party had taken some heart from the popular uprisings now rolling across the Middle East, "but if you ask whether we can lead such kind of activities or initiate such an uprising here, we might say no. Our leadership is rather out of touch. We spent many years in jail and so on and we have only limited contacts with the people."

"We have had the experience of being ignored for many years, but we don't mind because the people are with us and the international community is with us," Mr. Win Tin said as he sat in an office that was half empty and seemingly directionless during Ms. Suu Kyi's absence. "One day, in the very near future [the generals]will have to talk with us."