There is a heroic quality about the eruption of protest in Burma surrounding the conference in Rangoon organised by Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. The ruling military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, arrested 238 of the delegates to the conference, but many hundreds more turned up and an estimated 10,000 gathered to hear the party leader give an address on her campaign for democracy and an end to military rule. The message has been communicated by clandestine tapes and other forms of bush telegraph, with great effect, so much so that the regime organised counter demonstrations were attended mainly by civil servants.
The programme adopted at the conference emphasises the restoration of parliament and the need to give this primacy in Burma's constitutional future. This has been a constant theme of Ms Suu Kyi since she swept the board in the 1990 elections, gaining 82 per cent of the vote, a triumph which led to her arrest and the banning of her party. The regime's decision to release her last July was partly a response to international pressure, partly an element in a wider plan to marginalise her movement and co-opt it through a tame national convention to draft a constitution.
After some initial dialogue she decided to pull out of these talks, which she described as a "farce". She set about rebuilding the league, which had been severely repressed during her house arrest. On the evidence of this convention she has had considerable success. But this will present the military regime with a dilemma over whether to move against her again or attempt a political response.
The regime has been infuriated by the league's decision to draft a constitution itself, which would give primacy to democratic structures rather than to the military. But the military has now to take due account of international reaction to recent events. Ms Suu Kyi has called for international investment to be linked to human rights provisions. Calls for boycotts of investment and development aid have been heard to considerable effect in the United States and should be taken up more effectively in Europe and, most important, in Asia.
Economic growth requires international investment, in tourism, fisheries, logging and the extraction of raw materials, oil and gas. International coverage of repressive policies applied to remove Burmese people standing in the way of mass tourism and the despoliation of the country's vast timber resources have affected the regime's capacity to survive intact.
This was a skillfully contrived and courageous exercise in political mobilisation by the National League for Democracy, which could become an auspicious moment in the history of Burma. A country of some 43 million people, with an ancient civilisation, it deserves close international attention and solidarity with those who have suffered from extensive abuses of human rights.