In his new book, Courage: Eight Portraits, Mr Brown lauds the detained National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as a fearless prisoner of conscience battling a state "with one of the worst human rights records in the world, with 1,000 political prisoners and 500,000 political refugees" where "children as young as four are in prison" and "poets and journalists [are] tortured just for speaking out".
Mark Farmaner, of Burma Campaign UK, said Mr Brown's highlighting of the issue was welcome. But sympathy was not enough. "World leaders are really good at praising Suu Kyi. But they're not very good at listening to what she is actually saying," he said. "She says there must be concerted pressure at the UN, tougher targeted sanctions, and international action to end the attacks on ethnic minorities. We hope Gordon Brown will be different."
The Conservatives have also seized on Mr Brown's remarks, noting that the Bush administration has imposed more stringent sanctions on the junta than has Britain or the EU during 10 years of Blair-Brown leadership. "In the light of the chancellor's sympathies for the NLD, when can we expect sanctions banning all EU investment?" asked the shadow foreign minister, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.
For many Burmese, the issue grows critical. In recent days mortar bombardments, part of a renewed offensive against ethnic Karen separatists by renegade militias allied to the junta, have forced hundreds of civilians to flee across the border into northern Thailand. Human Rights Watch warned that the militias, pitted against the breakaway Karen National Union in Karen state, south-east Burma, appeared poised to attack Mae La camp, in Thailand, home to 45,000 mostly ethnic Karen Burmese refugees.
A recent report by the Karen Women's Organisation points to a "systematic reinforcement" of the junta's military infrastructure across Karen state and other border states populated by ethnic minorities.
The military's tightening grip, it says, has facilitated a "multiplicity of human rights violations such as forced labour, rape, beating, mutilation, torture, murder, denial of rights to food, water and shelter, and denial of the right to legal address ... as part of a strategy to terrorise and subjugate ... it is clear that rather than abating, the intensity of these attacks has only increased".
A similar investigation by the Women's League of Chinland also tracks an expanding military presence and accompanying abuses in Chin state, west Burma. Sexual abuses were rampant, it said. "These troops are using rape as a weapon to terrorise local communities." In one recent case reported from Katchin state, in the north, four teenage girls gang-raped by soldiers were subsequently charged with prostitution and jailed.
Burma's increasing importance as a source of energy and raw materials for its neighbours, India and China, is reinforcing the regime's sense of impunity. And Russia is a principal arms supplier.
While Britain and the EU maintain limited sanctions on the regime, they do not prohibit non-military bilateral trade and investment. Following the failure of the UN resolution, the prospect of tougher measures aimed at Burma by the Association of South-East Asian Nations has faded.
The UN's new leadership has failed to replace its Burma envoy who resigned last year in protest at the lack of action. And EU foreign ministers are expected to ignore calls for stronger measures when reviewing the existing EU "common position" next week - unless, of course, Mr Brown intervenes.
As matters stand, Mr Farmaner said, "it's shaping up to be a good year for the regime".
