Sanctions probably do hurt the top generals and their business cronies a bit, mainly because their children like to travel to the West (perhaps sanctions prevented Than Shwe's grandson from buying Manchester United? lol) but to be fair, the NLD and Suu Kyi should also ask for the same kind of sanctions (including a strict arms embargo) from China, North Korea, Thailand, Singapore (where the generals stash away most of their cash), South Korea, Malaysia, India, ... Otherwise it's all double-standards, hypocritical and ineffective. I've never heard Suu Kyi criticise China publicly for supporting the junta, even when US Senator Webb asked her that question directly, during his remarkable trip to Burma.
Anyway, sanctions won't work if there are enormous gas leaks and other leaks between Burma and the neighbouring countries, especially China. Even some Western companies (like Total) knew how to get around them.
It seems it's all more of the same in Burma.

Let's take a look at the track record of international sanctions: have they worked against North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Burma, or China (before Nixon)? Sanctions hurt the dictators a little, but the ordinary people a lot, and they serve as an obvious scapegoat when the dictators inevitably mismanage the economy: blame it on the sanctions!

The local political groups that called for sanctions to be removed – which included not only five ethnic-based political parties mentioned here, but also the two largest opposition Burmese parties, the National Democratic Force and Democratic Party – did not do so because of any supposed progress on human rights or political reform.

Their argument was based on three points. Sanctions have failed to induce positive change, have hurt ordinary people more than the generals and, perhaps most importantly, their removal could be used to improve dialogue and national reconciliation between stakeholders, ie. the opposition and the military.

I think the parties were correct on at least the first two of these, and the NLD has once again shot themselves in the foot for not recognising the damage sanctions have caused, let alone the futility of imposing them. The leadership has simply shown how disconnected from the general population they are.

Perhaps Tin Oo could also explain why the NLD (or anyone else) cannot cite any example of sanctions having influenced any decision by the regime since they were first imposed more than a decade ago. I challenge Tin Oo to produce any Myanmar employee of any NGO in Myanmar who supports sanctions. Sanctions have achieved nothing other than to exacerbate the suffering of the ordinary Myanmar people and to serve China's geo-strategic interests. They are a cruel and disgraceful failure.