Cruel stains and blemishes mar the features of beautiful Burma

FAX MACHINES can be nuisances when you are on the wrong end of them

FAX MACHINES can be nuisances when you are on the wrong end of them. But nobody would expect to find the possession of one was a crime unless, that is, you lived under the auspices of the State Law and Order Restoration Council in Burma.

Mr Leander Nichols, an avuncular Anglo Burmese businessman of 65 usually known as Leo, found to his fatal cost in June the dim view which the gentlemen of SLORC take of modern technology. He died in custody, reportedly from a heart attack, after being arrested on some vague charges, including the heinous fax possession.

Many people are asking if his close relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi, the indefatigable leader of the Burmese opposition, was not his real crime. Apparently he had been something of a father figure to Suu Kyi, ever since her own father, Aung San, another brave resistance leader, was assassinated when she was a small girl.

Posthumously Mr Nichols' case has been taken up by Denmark and Norway, for whom he acted as a diplomatic representative on occasion. Only last March he arranged a trade tour for a number of Danish companies interested in investing in Burma, the country for so long shrouded in mystery that many people knew little more about it than they could read in the pages of George Orwell's Burmese Days.

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But Danish investment in Burma has slowed to a trickle since Mr Nichols' death. Norway is likely to follow suit. Both countries have seen a storm of public anger over Mr Nichols' fate and the insouciant way the Burmese authorities regarded it.

The Norwegian government says it has evidence that Mr Nichols, a diabetic, had been denied insulin and deprived of sleep for days during his detention.

Both Scandinavian countries have demanded an explanation from the leadership in Rangoon - which the junta renamed Yangon - of Mr Nichols' death. One version of events was handed to the Tanaiste and Foreign Minister, Mr Spring, during his visit to Jakarta this week. This claimed that possible causes of Mr Nichols' death included "the richness of the food" he had been served during his incarceration, which was "not compatible" with his constitution.

But the SLORC is not accustomed to explaining itself. In the dogged resistance of Ms Suu Kyi and her followers its members have found infuriating and intractable opponents. Finally released last July, after six years of house arrest for her inconvenient dislike of the unelected government, Suu Kyi has not abandoned her cause but has been quietly organising mass rallies of her supporters. Images of phalanxes of Burmese, slim and defiant in their traditional garb, standing shoulder to shoulder, have given heart to their supporters outside the country. Such bravery is remarkable considering the consequences they can bring imprisonment, torture, perhaps worse.

The current regime the SLORC, has held power since its members military men, seized power in 1988 and subsequently ignored the results of democratic elections in 1990. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, gained more than 80 per cent of the vote. This was conveniently ignored by those who had more than 80 per cent of the guns.

As well as busily repressing the National League for Democracy, the junta has taken care of a number of troublesome minorities. In March 1992, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees denounced massacres perpetrated against different ethnic groups, hundreds of whom survived only to flee to Thailand and Bangladesh.

Yet this week the Association of South East Asian Nations, at a regular meeting (attended by Mr Spring) in Jakarta, started a process of cosying up to SLORC. Burma was granted observer status at the seven nation organisation, which includes another regime wont to smell of other than roses, Indonesia. The eventual plan seems to be to admit Burma, along with Cambodia and Laos, as a full member.

The London Independent correspondent quoted an unnamed European official at the Jakarta meeting as describing the act as a bit like the European Union... taking on Libya as a member", although he then apparently modified this to Algeria.

Why? Money, or in its less naked form, trade. The countries of ASEAN say they are adopting a course of "constructive engagement" regarding Burma. This means they prefer to engage with it, in whatever form it is ruled, rather than let this ancient and beautiful place, also a considerable market of some 42 million stay in its splendid isolation. ASEAN apologists, such as the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, say the strategy is for security in the region - it is possibly also to stand up to Big Brother China, although he does not say that.

But Suu Kyi has appealed to the international community NOT to "engage constructively" with investment and trade links. Although it might mean some hardship for her many followers, she regards it better to make an example of the junta and keep it out of polite and profitable trading company until it is forced to mend its ways.

And she has kindred spirits in high places: the US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, this week warned of possible "consequences" if Burma was not subject to international pressure to introduce proper democratic processes.

Mr Christopher said the junta's refusal to "heed the desires of a majority of people for a transition to democratic rule, and its increased harassment of the democratic opposition, not only violates basic universal human rights, but raises the chance of instability, bloodshed and migration within Burma and across its borders".

The US has withheld approval of aid packages form the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Also, two Democratic Senators, Mitch McConnell and Daniel Moynihan, are sponsoring an amendment to the current Foreign Aid Bill which would ban all US investment in Burma.

Big brewers Carlsberg, one of the Danish "withdrawees", and Heineken, the Dutch company, have already cancelled plans for breweries in Burma. And this week Suu Kyi urged foreign tourists to boycott her country.

"We would like people to keep away during Visit Myanmar Year as a symbol of solidarity with the movement for democracy in Burma," she told the satellite network Asia Business News (ABN). Myanmar is the name given to Burma by the junta. Nobody denies that Burma is beautiful, no matter what you call it. But it is a beauty only skin deep.