For those still behind bars, all that lies ahead for the foreseeable future is more hardship, and for their families, the fear of their loved ones succumbing to the torture, harassment, depression and lack of health care that have claimed more than a few lives over the past two decades.
It is also important to remember that political prisoners are not alone in being cut off from their families. Tens of thousands of Burmese exiles around the world have also been forcibly separated from their families by the repressive policies of Burma's military regime. Like so many others, I have not seen my family—my parents and younger sister—since the army seized power in 1988.
If a nation can be compared to a family, Burma is a deeply dysfunctional one. We are estranged from each other and reduced to misery because some members of our family seek only their own advantage and are indifferent to our common interests.
But eventually, if we are not to fall even farther behind our neighbors and the rest of the world, we will have to take steps to achieve some sort of reconciliation. As a first step toward this grand “family reunion,” the country's rulers should start reuniting the country's political prisoners with their families and allowing Burma to become whole again, one family at a time.
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