Last century - and it seems so long ago, now - I passed the beautiful, lakeside mansion where Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi had been held - again, seemingly forever - by the military. One had to move very quickly, to avoid the soldiers' scrutiny. Back then she was known as "the Lady", a hero standing implacably against guns and repression. Then, after all those years looking out alone over the water, she was finally released in 2010 and at last it looked as if a freeway to peace and progress was opening. Yet this was the very moment her own story grew suddenly murky. Our one-time heroine had chosen her own path; one very distant from those simple hopes of the past.

It began with Suu Kyi justifying horrific military repression - including rape and genocide - of the country's Muslim Rohingya on the Western border. Then she ruthlessly purged her own National League for Democracy of internal opposition. She surfed to an overwhelming victory in last year's election, but only after accepting the disenfranchisement of other ethnic minorities in the north and east. That's when some remembered that Suu Kyi's father was Aung San, the man who took Burma to independence after (first) allying with the Japanese in World War II and (then) turning on them. His objective was victory, not peace.

In real life any simple narrative of good against evil so often turns sour.

This week the generals drove, again, fast, straight through any remaining fragile pretence of democracy to simply seize control. The only vague genuflection towards universal values was a claim the election was rigged: the only evidence provided was that of their own failure to secure a majority.

So why should we care? Autocrat or junta, what's the difference?

Two key points.

Firstly, and however flawed that vote, there was at least the possibility of progress under an elected government. The second issue, though, is far more complex: the international dimension.

China is the country's neighbour to the north. Exclude the generals and they will, inevitably, turn towards partners that will legitimise their authoritarian rule. So while Canberra occasionally turns up the volume on its rhetoric of condemnation, politicians from both sides have always been willing to engage with the military, far more so than other Western democracies. The theory was that positive engagement would lead to progress. It never did. The problem was exclusion didn't work either.

The question is how to represent our values while at the same time accepting the limitations of influence and that there are different ways of achieving objectives.

Sometimes it's best to listen and think, rather than shout and act.