Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:02:47 PST
From:         Coban Tun <tun@QUARK.SFSU.EDU>
Subject:      Burmese regime unexpectedly recesses convention

UPn  01/11 0724  Burmese regime unexpectedly recesses convention
By CHIT TUN

   RANGOON, Burma (UPI) -- The military regime Monday unexpectedly recessed a
much heralded national convention it organized to draw up guidelines for a new
constitution.
   Maj.-Gen. Myo Nyunt, chairman of the convention's convening commission and
a member of the military junta, told the 699 convention delegates they should
return to meet again on Feb. 1.
   Most of the delegates came from the provinces to attend the convention, and
elaborate arrangements made several weeks ahead for their accommodation and for
panel discussions had led observers to believe the meeting would continue for
several days after its opening session on Saturday.
   A total of 32 foreign journalists, most of them from Japan, also arrived in
Rangoon last week to cover the convention. About 10 more have notified Burmese
authorities they plan to arrive this month.
   The four-year-old military regime, which calls itself the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC), called the convention to lay down the principles
for a new constitution intended to allow for "genuine multi-party democracy"
but which is expected to reaffirm the military's grip on power.
   Ethnic and dissident groups have denounced the convention as a SLORC ploy to
hold on to power "while attaining a semblance of legitimacy in the eyes of the
international community."
   Earlier Monday, Chief Justice Aung Toe, who is also chairman of the
convention's convening work committee, urged delegates to consider how  "firm
stipulations" should be included in the new constitution to provide for a
"national political leadership role" of the military in the future.
   "The greatness of the Tatmawdaw's (military's) tradition of leadership in
striving for independence and in national politics stands out very
distinctly," he said in an address before the convention was recessed.
   Myo Nyunt, in his opening address on Saturday, had also called on delegates
to cement the military's "leadership role" in the constitution.
   Aune Toe also urged that "utmost caution should be exercised not to disturb
the firm and enduring solidarity of the nationalities."
   The point was apparently intended to deter ethnic minority races from coming
up with proposals for a federal structure in which constituent states would
have the right of secession, as laid down in the country's first constitution in
1947.
   SLORC took power in September 1988 and then brutally suppressed pro-
democracy protests that began several months earlier.
   Free elections in May, 1990 were won overwhelmingly by the opposition
National League for Democracy, despite the detention a year earlier of NLD
leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. SLORC has
refused to allow the party to take power.
   Then Defense Minister Gen. Tan Shwe replaced ailing SLORC chairman Gen. Saw
Maung last April, and the regime has since launched a campaign aimed at
improving its international image. The opposition and much of the world
community have dismissed the moves as largely cosmetic.
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