For Burma’s beleaguered opposition, waiting to hear if Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was to be sentenced to more years behind bars, Wednesday marked a series of grim anniversaries: 19 years since the vote where she led them to overwhelming victory and six years since she was last free.

Mrs Suu Kyi is on trial in Rangoon’s Insein prison, charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an American citizen swam the lake that backs on to her home and stayed two nights.