A cabal of military men has ruled Burma for nearly half a century, often with unfathomable cruelty. But recent events have made Burma watchers wonder if change is coming. Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest last year, made her first trip outside Rangoon in August. She was greeted by enthusiastic crowds and not, as she was in 2003, by the junta’s thugs. When she left Rangoon again, this time for a one-hour talk with President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw that left her feeling “happy and satisfied.”
Is one of the world’s oldest military regimes finally taking baby steps toward reform? Even the experts seem split. “There is still no evidence of a wish to embrace real democracy,” says Andrew Selth, a research fellow at Australia’s Griffith University. “But it has to be admitted that Burma’s new government is demonstrating a degree of flexibility many
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