The generals who rule Burma, trying to deflect criticism over their oppression, are pressing a plan they claim will take them to democratization. Known as the seven-point roadmap, this plan is a way to assure that the junta headed by General Than Shwe remains in power. Meanwhile, on the streets of Rangoon, unarmed monks were murdered in cold blood by the government’s soldiers all of last month. Thousands of activists have been arrested and are held in torture dungeons.

Decent people living in the world’s democracies turned to an institution that was established to counter such naked brutality: the United Nations. But the mandarins of Turtle Bay, where delicate diplomacy always trumps regime change as a policy tool, are unequipped to deal with the Burmas of this world. This was underscored Tuesday when Secretary General Ban said he “would strongly urge the Myanmar authorities to implement the seven-point road map for democratization.”

Mr. Ban’s spokesmen yesterday clarified his statement, pointing out that in recent briefings to the Security Council, the secretary-general’s envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, had said that “other elements” need to be added to the plan. The fact is that nothing would please Mr. Shwe and his henchmen more than protracted negotiations over implementation of their plan. Indeed the ideology of protracted negotiations have emerged as what might be called U.N.-ism, an ideal in and of itself to the inhabitants of the U.N. system.

The right policy is one that aims at strengthening the democratic forces underground and in exile against the day when they will be able to accede. And let such a policy be declared. Only those forces can usher a new democracy to replace their rule. Yesterday the only three leaders of the movement known as the “88 Generation Students” who have been able to evade the junta’s dragnet wrote a letter to Mr. Ban and the Security Council, detailing some of their ideas for the course change they seek.

The letter, our Benny Avni reported yesterday, focused on a call for the generals to allow all ethnic groups and political forces to participate in the country’s political process. The writers of the letter, who no doubt fear death and torture, do honor to the Security Council. They call on it to impose arms embargo on Burma. They write that they see in China and Russia “friends” and then “respectfully request that they exercise maximum understanding when considering our plight.”

China is more interested in “stability” in its client state next door, and Russia will rather sell weapons than impose a ban. It would be nice were the Security Council to invite the legitimately elected, but currently imprisoned, leader of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate in peace, to address the world at Turtle Bay. But with China and Russia as veto holders, we know this is impossible. It underscores the irrelevance of the world body whose envoy, Mr. Gambari, is the only person beside Ms. Suu Kyi’s jailers who is allowed to visit her.

Rather than going immediately to Burma and staying there until democracy takes root, as the letter writers ask, Mr. Gambari was at Malaysia yesterday on his way to Indonesia, India, China, and Japan. At the end of the week he is due back in New York. Only some time next month, if the authorities are graceful enough to allow it, will he go back to Burma for a quick visit with the generals and, possibly, with Ms. Suu Kyi. What will the U.N. do with whatever she tells the pleasant gentleman who used to represent one of Africa’s most ruthless dictators, Sani Abacha of Nigeria?