Myanmar: Shooting itself in the
foot By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Myanmar's military government appears
set to shoot itself in the foot with the uncertainty it
is creating over political reform in that Southeast
Asian nation, known as Burma before the military junta
officially renamed the country in 1989.
A major
test for Yangon was to have been its participation in
the second round of an international dialogue dubbed the
"Bangkok Process", due to be held in Thailand from April
29-30. Thailand cemented its commitment toward political
reform in neighboring Myanmar by hosting the first
Bangkok Process dialogue in the Thai capital in
December.
But by Thursday, sources close to Thai
Foreign Ministry officials said the Myanmar junta was
not prepared to attend the two-day meeting late this
month. "The Bangkok Process meeting is being postponed,"
a Thai foreign-affairs expert told Inter Press Service.
This hardly surprised Teddy Buri, who leads a
group of Myanmar parliamentarians in exile. "The Bangkok
Process was about bringing change in Burma, but the
[Myanmar] government had nothing to deliver to show its
commitment," he said in an interview.
The State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta calls
itself, has "a long history of broken promises and
lies," added Buri, who was among those elected in a 1990
parliamentary election, the results of which the junta
refused to recognize.
Among the issues expected
to arise during the international talks in Thailand was
the fate of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
detained under house arrest since last May 30.
Speculation about Suu Kyi's release has gained
momentum in recent weeks, particularly after the
military eased restrictions on her political party, the
National League for Democracy (NLD), releasing two
senior members from detention and allowing it to reopen
its headquarters in Yangon.
During the 60th
annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission in
Geneva on Wednesday, where the Myanmar government was
condemned in a resolution for its systematic violation
of human rights and suppression of political freedom,
the United Nations' premier human-rights body demanded
the freedom of the Nobel Peace laureate.
"There
was talk that Daw Suu Kyi will be freed on April 21,"
Zin Lin, information officer for the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the elected
government-in-exile, had said. But that day came and
went without bringing any sign of Suu Kyi's release.
Still, a detained Suu Kyi cannot be wished away,
a reminder made evident to the SPDC by a view consistent
among Myanmar exiles and political watchers: that a
political reform process without Suu Kyi will be
irrelevant. "Her participation will make it valid, give
it legitimacy," Lin said during an interview.
Suu Kyi and senior NLD members were arrested
after goons sympathetic to the junta attacked them last
May. It was the latest in a series of arrests that the
pro-democracy leader has been subject to since the
current military rulers captured power in 1988.
After the May incident, which triggered a storm
of global outrage, Yangon revealed noticeable shifts in
its political approach; key among them was the
announcement by Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt of a
seven-point program toward political reform.
Included in this process is the resumption of
the National Convention in May to draft a new
constitution. The Thai government welcomed this as a
sign of progress, given that the National Convention was
last convened in 1993 but only lasted until 1996 when
the NLD walked out under protest.
In December,
during the groundbreaking Bangkok Process dialogue, a
three-hour meeting in which 10 Asian and European
governments participated, the Myanmar foreign minister
again announced that Yangon would press ahead with the
National Convention this year.
The Thai
government played up the significance of that December
meeting and has since hoped that the second round this
month would strengthen Myanmar's road to democracy.
"I believe that the upcoming meeting will push
the National Convention to announce the drafting of a
constitution," Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart
Sathirathai told the press here last month.
Others belive that such optimism is misplaced.
"The [Myanmar] regime is not willing to open the
constitutional process and make it democratic," said
Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on
Burma, a regional human-rights lobby.
Yangon's
decision not to participate in the Bangkok Process
suggests how uncomfortable the junta would be if pressed
on the openness of the constitutional process, she
added.
And for its part, the SPDC has done well
to prove its critics right. The junta made it known this
week that it strongly favors a dominant role for the
military to be recognized in the new constitution.
The SPDC has "no intention of introducing a new
process during the National Convention," said Buri, the
exiled parliamentarian.
The convention process,
due to start on May 17, "will continue from where it
last ended, which means no freedom of speech and limited
interaction and discussions among the political groups
invited to participate", Buri said.
"The SPDC is
making a big mistake by this," he added, "the same with
their effort to marginalize the NLD and Suu Kyi before
the convention."
