The marching monks of Burma have given the world another reason to resent the military junta that rules what was once the jewel of Asia.

Their defiant demonstrations and bloodied faces also provide testament that we in the international community have failed the people of Burma miserably.

Our focus on Burma has been on democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals who have an iron grip on this impoverished nation.

We pay little heed to what the people of Burma really want and need.

Suu Kyi, 62, is now in her 12th year of detention serving her third term of house arrest.

The current junta led by Than Shwe has been in power since 1988.

Since that time, the United Nations has adopted 28 resolutions condemning Burma while a variety of countries have imposed an assortment of sanctions.

The results of these actions have made Burma an economic basket case where repression, mismanagement and corruption govern an economy fuelled by bribery and drug trafficking.

Most Burmese have no more than one meal a day with one-third of the population being malnourished. They live in crisis.

More than 1,200 political prisoners are languishing in jails. They live with little hope.

The 14 soldiers, who form the junta, rule a so-called “national emergency” with psychological and physical terror. They live in luxurious isolation in a fortress city carved out of the jungle.

The recent street demonstrations led by the monks, who believed that their fellow men would not dare open fire on Buddha’s disciples, tell us that every international approach to help Burma has failed.

These Burma policies — be they selective engagement or impotent sanctions — have perversely kept the people poor and the military in power.

Now is the time for a multi-faceted Plan B for Burma.

Domestically, it is time for Suu Kyi to realize that she is as much a part of the problem as the solution for the Burmese people.

Her quest for martyrdom has had little impact on the everyday lives of the Burmese people.

The Nobel laureate has espoused little in the way of policies to govern a new Burma.

She insists on going after the generals as soon as she gets into power, forcing the junta to keep her locked up.

Her continued incarceration serves no purpose for the Burmese people.

Her intransigence gives the generals no latitude for change.

General Than Shwe has agreed to meet Suu Kyi, but only if she stops calling for confrontation, “utter devastation” and economic sanctions against the regime.

The marching monks have given Suu Kyi an opportunity to affect change.

The worst thing that could happen for the people of Burma is if she does not use it and forces her nation back to suffer more years of deprivation.

On the international front, we need to stop thinking that we can frog-march democracy back into Burma with punitive policies.

This will only further hurt the Burmese people. Additionally,  China, India and Russia, all of whom have strategic interests in Burma, will fight any attempt at  the UN on this front.

The global policy should instead focus on reconciliation of the political extremes in Burma for the benefit of the Burmese people.

The collective moral indignation of the western world is not going to feed the Burmese people or nourish the nation’s democracy. Sure the starting position of this reconciliation process between the “evil-doers” and the “demo-oracle” will be awkward.

But it will pave the way for governance that is built by the Burmese for Burma.