Letter: Burma fears

Robin Thomson and Rosie Sparks of James Gillespie's High School deserve our respect for their keen interest in Aung San Suu Kyi (Platform, 22 November), but should not be too optimistic in expecting major change in the poignant tragedy of Burma's situation.

This is no "Mandela moment"; as they no doubt know, apartheid and white rule collapsed when the authorities lost the support of the western democracies. Nor is it likely to be akin to Churchill's "end of the beginning" (as has been suggested even by the exiled Burmese democrat Naw Paw Ray) which occurred after just three years of near-total war, and within 12 months of the US's and 18 months of the USSR's entry, which sealed Hitler's fate.

Burma does not threaten its neighbours and has endured 48 years of internal tyranny with strong and continuing support from China (naturally, as with North Korea) and India (regrettably) for both geopolitical and economic reasons. The Iron Curtain lasted as long, but there is no sign of a Gorbachev or de Klerk in Beijing or Rangoon's leadership.

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews, Fife