New Myanmar's changes are no revolution

BANGKOK — Myanmar's elections last year seemed like just another self-serving maneuver by the country's generals to keep their thumbs on the scales of power. Then some surprising things began to happen.

The new government eased censorship, legalized labor unions, suspended an unpopular, China-backed dam project and began talks with Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her pro-democracy movement.

A revolution it isn't, however.

Political prisoners still languish in jails. The military still draws accusations of routine abuse against ethnic groups. And the country's long-suffering citizens remain highly skeptical of their government, believing its reforms could be aimed at lifting Western sanctions or avoiding an Arab Spring.

"The government is never sincere, and they will backtrack any time once their wishes are fulfilled," 45-year-old lawyer Myint Thein said in Rangon.

So far, most of the optimism appears to be outside the country as it emerges from a long reliance on China, with Myanmar and the West both keen to reconcile after decades of frosty relations.

U.S. envoy Derek Mitchell told reporters in Yangon on Friday that Myanmar's new government has taken a series of positive steps and that Washington would like to support its reforms.

"We would look to respond in kind," he said.

The international community's hopes were not high after Myanmar's carefully orchestrated Nov. 7, 2010 election. As expected, the polls brought to power a proxy party for the military, which has run the country since a 1962 coup.

But that perception has changed in recent months, said Asian Studies director David Steinberg of Georgetown University.

"You have a whole set of new things happening," Steinberg said. "I don't know how far and how fast they can go on these things. But they are moving and ... they are moving in a manner that we might not have predicted."

In one of the most closely watched aspects, however, the administration has so far fallen short: Large-scale clemencies for convicts have included less than 300 of an estimated 2,000 political prisoners, with many of the more prominent ones remaining behind bars.

"It is too early to know whether the government's change of tone and talk of reform is cynical window-dressing or evidence that significant change will come to the country," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.