A new page?

摘要

The small crowd that gathered this week to await the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's Nobel-prize winning dissident, could not contain its excitement. Rumours of her imminent arrival at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) caused the waiting activists to surge up and down the street outside the building, knocking over television cameras. When she finally did arrive to make her first public appearance after nearly 20 months of house arrest, the elated onlookers listened rapturously as she reiterated her determination to bring democracy to Myanmar, after 40 years of military misrule. Miss Suu Kyi's 18-month dialogue with Myanmar's junta finally seemed to be bearing fruit. But most Burmese are wearier and more cautious than the excitable cadres of the NLD. Fewer than 1,000 people turned out for Miss Suu Kyi's release. Passengers in passing buses twisted and craned to catch a glimpse of her―but none dared stop. Hardly anyone on the streets of the capital, Yangon, risked discussing the matter with foreigners, and those who did affected a lack of interest or expressed mistrust of the junta's intentions. Myanmar's democrats have suffered too many false starts and setbacks over recent years to take the military regime's announcement of "a new page" at face value.