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The junta promised on Feb. 8, 2008, to hold elections in 2010, but failed to give a precise date for the elections or to release the rules and regulations concerning them. According to analysts in Rangoon, recent plans to release such laws and regulations seem aimed at placing the opposition parties, especially the National League for Democracy, at a disadvantage.
The junta's Secretary-1 Lieutenant-General Tin Aung Myint Oo said on state-run radio and television that the government had managed to achieve economic and social stability. “So it is now suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established," he said.
The majority of Burmese citizens, however, oppose Tin Aung Myint Oo’s views on peace and stability. How dare he say the situation is stable when there are more than 2,100 political prisoners? As the anniversary of the 2007 Saffron Revolution nears, the junta has been continuing its manhunt for monks, students and politicians who support democracy.
The United Nations as well as the United States and European Union have been focusing on the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 2,100-plus political prisoners. The international community has been distressed over the extended house arrest of Suu Kyi.
Leaders of Britain, France and the United States all strongly condemned the one-and-a-half-year extended house arrest as a charade of justice and the trial as a farce. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly called for the immediate release of the Lady.
Here is a question for the junta's Secretary-1: Are the people of Burma secure in their daily lives?
According to findings by the Peace Way Foundation, the number of internally displaced persons in Burma continues to grow at an alarming rate. Military operations, development projects and economic hardship are all contributing to a catastrophic situation. Millions of people in Burma are facing starvation and displacement, with no access to basic services like education and healthcare.
Many of Burma’s displaced people are from minority ethnic groups. They live precarious and transient lives in the jungles of border areas and in the more urban central plains. They are denied stable homes and livelihoods, forced into a constant state of movement. Recent estimates say there are 2 million displaced people in military-ruled Burma. This is not the situation of a peaceful country.
In early August armed conflict broke out between Burmese troops and the ethnic Kokang, one of four ethnic rebel groups that signed a ceasefire deal in 1988 and 89. By the end of the month fighting had spread to Burma’s border with China.
The junta’s offensive against the Kokang group, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, is a challenge to the other groups that have signed ceasefires. It is a warning to obey the regime’s procedures for the 2010 elections. Actually, it’s a tactic to pressure the ethnic groups to lay down their arms and join the union designed by the junta. But such unity under military boots could break at any time.
Burma’s new Constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, is inundated with misleading principles. It says the country must be united under one military command. To bring the ethnic groups in line with this proviso, the military regime has ordered all armed rebel groups to become part of Burma’s border guard force ahead of the 2010 election.
The border guard force, which was announced in April 2009, will disband the rebel groups’ strength and end their military autonomy. All these border-guard regiments are supposed to come under the supervision of a Burmese army officer. This was a tactic to disarm the ethnic rebels, but it was rejected by the Kokang, Wah, Kachin, Shan and Mon ceasefire groups.
The ethnic conflicts created by the Burmese authorities are a challenge to a peaceful Burma. Is it really possible to change Burma to a democratic, civil administrative system while the ethnic population is under attack? Is the statement of the junta's Secretary-1 true, that good fundamentals have been established? The average person considers this analysis as duplicity.
The regime is attempting to legalize the military dictatorship with a sham Constitution. Therefore most citizens view the junta’s 2010 elections as a declaration of war against its own people.
Ethnic minorities have been suffering through five decades of brutal military operations in the name of national unity. Attacks on these rural civilians continue on a daily basis. There is a constant demand from Burma’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament. It must also include provisions against racial discrimination.
At the June 2004 National Convention, 13 ceasefire groups submitted a political proposal demanding equal access to the plenary session. But the convention’s convening committee dismissed the proposal as inappropriate. When the 2008 Constitution came out, none of the political points proposed by the ethnic representatives was included.
Aung San Suu Kyi supports equal rights for all ethnic groups, while the military leaders are unwilling to grant this. This is one reason the military obstinately declines to release Suu Kyi and constantly exerts pressure to weaken the ethnic political parties and ceasefire groups.
There is a big gap between the military junta and the NLD led by the Lady. To the military autocrats, allowing the ethnic minorities to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights is a hazard to national unity and the perpetuation of sovereignty. To the NLD and ethnic alliance parties, granting equal rights to ethnic minorities will guarantee peace, stability and prosperity of the country.
Now the junta’s policy of guarding against the breakup of the union is starting a new war game with the ethnic ceasefire groups on the Sino-Burma border. Even China seems to be sandwiched between the junta and the United Wa State Army, as both depend on its assistance. But in defeating the Kokang, the junta sent a tough message to the UWSA. It might also be a warning to China not to intervene in Burma’s internal affairs.
According to some analysts, if the junta plans to postpone the controversial 2010 elections it will declare war on the UWSA. It would be one more unfortunate consequence – like the confinement of Aung San Suu Kyi and the 2,100-plus political prisoners and the wars on ethnic minorities – of the constitutional crisis.
Without a review of the 2008 Constitution by all stakeholders, Burma will not prevail in this crisis. Too many innocent people have been victimized in the ongoing constitutional misfortune.
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(Zin Linn is a freelance Burmese journalist living in exile in Bangkok, Thailand. He works at the NCGUB East Office as an information director and is vice president of Burma Media Association, which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers. ©Copyright Zin Linn.)
