Burma to try protesters for arson, possession of weapons

"Only those individuals involved in arson or the possession of illegal weapons will be brought to trial," Burma police chief Khin Yi said in Naypyitaw, the new administrative capital.

He said there were only 21 monks and 59 laymen still in Burma jails on charges related to the protests.

Khin Yi also said only 15 people died in the unrest, a number that UN special human rights' envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro announced as the government's official death toll last month.

On December 11, Pinheiro plans to announce his own estimates of the death toll, as well as the number of people arrested since the peaceful anti-government protests in Yangon, the former capital, led by Buddhist monks.

The demonstrations, the largest since 1988, ended in a brutal crackdown on September 26-27, and led to the arrests of more than 3,000 people. With arrests still occurring on a daily basis, it is difficult to know the real number of people detained for participating in the protests, sparked by a shock fuel price hike announced on August 15.

Khin Yi's comments came during a news conference in Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Yangon, held to announce the continuation of the junta's seven-step road map to democracy.

A 54-member constitution drafting committee started work on a new charter for the country on Monday, Burma Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said.

It took the junta 15 years to write up the guidelines for a new constitution, which must now be drafted and then passed by a general referendum, according to the junta's seven-step plan.

The lengthy process, dubbed a sham by the international community, has lost all credibility since the September demonstrations which were seen as a call for real political change.

Kyaw Hsan acknowledged that the recent protests had "disturbed" the seven-step road map.

But he warned that calls by the opposition National League for Democracy party to set up an interim government "will not be tolerated once it reaches a dangerous point." 

In the wake of the September crackdown, which unleashed a fresh wave of international criticism of Burma's military rulers, junta chief Senior Than Shwe agreed to open a dialogue with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the precondition that she drop her support for economic sanctions against the regime.

//dpa