Gordon Brown's strong condemnation of repression in Burma has raised hopes that Britain will take a tougher stance towards the country's military junta if and when he becomes prime minister. New initiatives are certainly needed. After a UN security council resolution demanding a restoration of democracy was vetoed by China and Russia in January, the generals are growing more confident - and aggressive.
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 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."
Britain's Conservative opposition has also seized on Mr Brown's remarks, noting that the Bush administration has imposed more stringent sanctions on the junta than Britain or the EU has 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?" demanded 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 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 in south-east Burma, appeared poised to attack Mae La camp in Thailand, home to 45,000 mostly ethnic Karen Burmese refugees.
"The Burmese government's brutal campaign against ethnic minorities inside the country has already resulted in gross violations of human rights," said Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch. Any extension of that campaign across the border to attack refugees would constitute a "flagrant violation" of international law.
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 the these attacks has only increased."
A similar investigation by the Women's League of Chinland also provides evidence of an expanding military presence and accompanying abuses in Chin state in western Burma. "Particularly in the ethnic areas, [the junta] has been building up its troop presence to subjugate resistance movements and secure control of natural resources and border trade."
Sexual abuses were rampant, it said. "These troops are using rape as a weapon to terrorise local communities. Women and girls as young as 12 are being raped in their homes and farms, while travelling, and when conscripted as forced labour." In one recent case reported from northern Katchin state, 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 giant neighbours India and China is reinforcing the regime's sense of impunity. China, for example, won praise for its logging bans, imposed in the 1990s to prevent deforestation and flooding. But China has since become the world's biggest importer of tropical hardwood, much of it from Burma. For its part, India is pursuing a similarly uncritical, self-interested policy. Alongside China, Russia is a main arms supplier to the generals.
While Britain and the EU maintain sanctions on the regime, they are strictly limited in nature and 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 (Asean) 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, meeting next week, are expected to ignore calls for stronger measures when reviewing the existing EU "common position" - unless, of course, Mr Brown intervenes.
As matters stand "it's shaping up to be a good year for the regime," Mr Farmaner said.
