The absurd and ultimately self-defeating harassment of Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to be dragged out for another two weeks.
The dictators of that sad country were unable or unwilling to meet the promise of a verdict in her case. So the world will wait until at least next week for the judges to read the next justification for jailing and further impeding Mrs Suu Kyi.
By tossing her into the infamous Insein prison and forcing her to appear at a trial, the Burmese generals seem to be trying to increase her intimidation. They have succeeded instead in further shaming their own country and increasing the sympathy around the globe for their prisoner.
Mrs Suu Kyi was arrested nearly three months ago in a case that Kafka could not have invented. She had been held for years under house arrest, without charges of any sort. Her home was guarded by armed soldiers. Early in May, an apparently deranged American swam to her lakeside home, supposedly to warn her that he had had a vision of an assassination plot. Because the American, John William Yettaw, simply walked into Mrs Suu Kyi's compound, the Burmese regime arrested her and charged her with harbouring the man.
If Burma were a rational nation, the soldiers who allowed the invasion, and their commander, would be in the dock. But since it is Burma, the completely powerless Mrs Suu Kyi was thrown into prison and charged with violating the terms of her house arrest. Mr Yettaw, who by all accounts appears to be a disturbed man, is on trial separately.
The Burmese foreign minister, U Nyan Win, absent a shred of evidence, told the world that the Yettaw invasion of Mrs Suu Kyi's home was the work of ''internal and external anti-government elements'' plotting against the regime. Just what Mr Yettaw could have achieved is unexplained.
The so-called trial of Mrs Suu Kyi has been the usual military-directed shambles.
Court meetings have been modified at the last moment, testimony was delayed, the defence was harassed, the public was excluded. In a show of insolence seldom matched in diplomacy, the regime invited the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, to visit the country, then refused to give him access to Mrs Suu Kyi or to listen seriously to his repeated pleas for at least a show of justice for the Nobel Peace laureate.
At the Asean-sponsored foreign ministers' meetings on Phuket, the regime shrugged off even minor suggestions that it could act in a more civilised manner. Its reply was to tell Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to cancel his planned trip to Burma.
There are welcome signs that Burma may have bitten off a bit more than it can chew. Southeast Asian leaders including Mr Abhisit have called for Mrs Suu Kyi's release.
In Washington, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines drew high-level attention to the plight of the Burmese leader. President Barack Obama, who had ordered a full review of harsh sanctions on Burma, has announced those sanctions will remain so long as Mrs Suu Kyi is, literally, under the gun.
The regime at last is finding it difficult to try to be both isolationist and an Asean member. It has earned strong attention recently over secret projects with North Korea, which apparently are nuclear related.
The generals are fighting a battle to hold a sham referendum next year and keep their power. Last Friday, they arrested scores of supporters of Mrs Suu Kyi. Faced with world outrage over the trial, the generals also must fear their own people.
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