Burma opens last round of charter talks

A process of a new constitution was launched over a decade ago but the junta has not publicly said who will draft the charter. Now the junta insists again that this session will be the final step, which will be discussed about the elections, political parties, emergency provisions and the procedure for amending the constitution, prime minister Thein Sein was reported by news agencies as telling delegates as he opened the talks.

In Kuala Lumpur, Agence France-Presse reported Tuesday that about 50 demonstrators denounced Burma's "sham" talks on a new constitution. The protestors also condemned Russian involvement with the reclusive country's military regime.

The talks in Burma resumed without leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which has boycotted the convention since 1995 in protest at the detention of its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The United Nations, the Western powers and some critics say the proceedings are a sham designed to tighten junta's grip on power.

In 1990, NLD won an election in a landslide victory but the military did not recognise.

Despite the party's boycott, NLD spokesman Thein Nyunt said they had submitted their own proposals for a new charter to the military, but there was no response.

"We are keeping an eye on the convention and deciding what we should do. We will release our opinion on the constitution when the time comes," he said.

The 1,058 delegates were mostly hand-picked by the military and are not allowed to speak to journalists and the public. They cannot even leave the Nyaunghnapin military compound north of Yangon where the talks take place.

Some of the international media were not granted visas to attend even start of this round, said news agencies.

The talks are expected to last about six weeks and to draw up the principles for the new charter. Then, the military will still have to draft the final document to a referendum, but the timetable for this process is not yet set.

"The authorities are holding the National Convention as a one-sided process. It cannot solve our problems," said Chin Sian Thang, head of the ethnic Zomi National Congress.

//The Nation