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BURMA: New Constitution in Two Months – Junta

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 18 2007 (IPS) - Burma’s military rulers had a surprise in store for the over 1,000 delegates who had gathered for the latest session to draft the country’s new constitution.

It should finish in two months, the South-east Asian nation’s information minister Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan said in remarks to the media ahead of the formal discussions getting underway, according to Burmese journalists IPS spoke with.

The sense of finality at Wednesday’s announcement was rare considering that the process has come to be known as one of the world’s longest constitution-drafting exercises – now extending over 14 years and six months.

It comes a month after the country’s acting Prime Minister Thein Sein broke with tradition to declare that the constitutional talks beginning in mid-July will be the final session of the National Convention (NC), the body tasked by the junta to draft Burma’s third constitution.

But this sudden change of tune does not mean that the march to create a democratic culture with free and fair elections is about to end, said Burma watchers based in neighbouring Thailand in interviews with IPS. Nor, they add, does it give hope that the political reforms to reduce the junta’s iron grip on power in the country are in the offing.

‘’This timeline may be new, but there is no timeline given for the other six steps that the junta said had to be followed as part of its roadmap to democracy,’’ says Zin Linn, a spokesman for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the country’s democratically-elected government forced into exile. ‘’It is all part of the sham; this is a fake constitution. They could finish at anytime they want.’’

Others, like Aung Zaw, contend that the latest development had little to do with a change of heart within the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the official name of the military regime. ‘’China has had a role to play in pushing the SPDC in this direction,’’ says the editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’, a current affairs magazine produced by Burmese journalists living in northern Thailand. ‘’It is worried that further delay will cause instability, which China does not want, due to its interests in Burma.’’

Human rights groups have warned that the outcome of the NC would trigger instability along the country’s borders, home to many of Burma’s ethnic communities that have suffered under military repression. It follows from the new constitution confirming the regime’s greater hold on power at the expense of ethnic groups who participated in the NC to secure peace and more political autonomy for their regions.

It would ‘’intensify the root causes of the ethnic-based conflicts perpetuated by Burma’s successive military regimes,’’ noted the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), a South-east Asian human rights lobby in a statement released on the eve of the current session of the NC. Ethnic groups have ‘’consistently proposed steps to salvage the NC and transform it into a venue for dialogue; however these recommendations have been rejected.’’

Over the weekend, leaders of some ethnic communities made a similar argument at a press conference along the Thai-Burma border. ‘’The only outcome for Burma will be increased militarisation, armed conflict and chaos,’’ warned Khun Mar Ko Ban, a member of parliament and former delegate at the NC representing the Democratic Organisation for Kayan National Unity.

The Burmese regime, which has renamed the country as Myanmar, initiated the NC shortly after the political party representing it was comprehensively trounced at the 1990 parliamentary elections by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). Yet, the junta refused to recognise the results, nor give way to the NCGUB, the name of the democratically-elected government. By then, it had also detained the Nobel Peace laureate and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest.

The NC soon came to be known as a charade by the junta to prolong its hold. Its first session began in 1993 and continued till 1996 when the NLD walked out in protest. It was revived in 2004, for which most of the over 1,000 delegates were chosen by the SPDC. The participants also included representatives from the 17 ethnic groups that had signed peace deals with the junta, ending years of separatist conflict.

When the NC resumed in 2004, the junta billed it as one of a seven-point political reform process which would include a referendum to approve the new constitution as the second step. But the gap between what it assured the world and the ground reality was visible during the talks that year, with harsh warnings against open discussions of the charter.

This desire for military control was evident during the May 2004 round of the NC. Delegates were told to ‘’put on suitable clothes, avoid having a bath at an unreasonable time and (refrain from) eating junk food,’’ reported the ‘New Light of Myanmar, an English-language government mouthpiece.

Burma’s backers on the global stage cannot ignore the regime’s agenda that, over the past 14 years, has worsened. ‘’India, China and Russia have looked the other way as Burma’s military government tries to hide its repressive rule behind a façade of constitutional rule,’’ says Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, a global rights lobby, in a statement released Wednesday.

‘’The generals who run Burma have trumpeted the convention as a vehicle for a return to civilian rule and the rule of law,’’ he adds. ‘’But they have engineered the outcome to ensure the military remains in control and exclude the people of Burma from the process.’’