Deja Vu All Over Again

The military dictators in Burma have extended the house arrest of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi -- again. So much for giving peace a chance. She has spent more than 10 of the last 16 years confined to her home, which is slowly falling down around her ears. Except for a cook, she isn't allowed any visitors. This Nobel peace laureate is the poster child for armed rebellion, because passive resistance hasn't worked. When the military refused to let Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy take power after a landslide victory in 1990 elections, she should have taken up arms with about 17 other ethnic rebel groups in the country to seize power. A civil war would have been preferable to the brutal conditions that exist under the junta. Instead, she sits in her house, most of the leaders of her party are dying of old age, most of the ethnic rebels have been pacified and there seems no indication whatsoever that sanctions will force the ruling generals to make democratic reforms. The junta has even moved the seat of government from Rangoon to the northern jungles for fear of an American attack that will never come. "Give peace a chance," is just coward-speak for, "there's nothing worth fighting for."