Speaking at a meeting of European and Asian countries in Bali yesterday, EU external affairs commissioner Chris Patten sounded exasperated. "Everybody, including Asian countries, can see the enormous damage being done to neighbours ... by the way the regime is behaving. Their behaviour has been appalling." Mr Patten's impatience, even anger, is understandable; it is widely shared. Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien, present in Bali, spoke of the "dreadful developments" in Burma when he urged a tourism boycott earlier this month. But this is mostly chaff, and the junta must know it. The Bali participants, divided on how hard to push, agreed only the most anodyne position, reiterating the hope that Ms Suu Kyi be released. No punitive action was threatened if or when that hope is again ignored. Likewise, EU foreign ministers were reduced to mouthing an expression of concern this week after failing to agree targeted economic sanctions that might make a real difference to the regime's behaviour.
Burma's neighbours have long resisted direct western involvement in resolving its political and human rights problems. But by failing to improve matters, regional states encourage that very outcome. The US Congress has already voted to impose sweeping trade and other sanctions which George Bush will support and which the Conservatives believe Britain should emulate. Tony Blair is not unsympathetic. For the sake of the long-suffering, much-abused Burmese people, but also perhaps in order to nip this familiar, budding US-British double act in the bud, Asian countries must take a much firmer collective line.
