The country’s military rulers claim to have embraced democracy – and will soon transfer formal power to the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But an unsolved double murder may suggest the Burmese army is not yet ready to surrender control

There is an old video clip that is famous in Myanmar. It shows a comedian on stage gesticulating with effervescent energy as his straight man challenges him to dance in different styles: first, Indian; then, Chinese; and then in the style of Myanmar’s hated military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Suddenly, the comedian is all slippery slime, his hands reaching out to steal, picking imaginary pockets, grasping and grabbing and smirking at his own greed.

The camera cuts to the audience, beaming with delight, and then to a woman with long black hair who rocks forward in her seat laughing, politely raising her fingers to cover her mouth. In spite of the passing of 20 years since that video was shot in January 1996, the face is immediately recognisable. It is Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country’s democracy movement, at whose house the comedy show took place.

For daring to make a laughing stock of the military elite the comedian was arrested at dawn four days later

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A villager fetched the nervous police officers, who shot video of the crime scene. It reveals a crime of pure hatred

The interviews conducted by the police suggest that they had no intention of seriously investigating the soldiers

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