Military

DATE=10/23/04

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=BURMA / POLITICS (L-O)

NUMBER=2-319855

BYLINE=NANCY-AMELIA COLLINS

DATELINE=BANGKOK

VOICED AT:

HEADLINE: Burma Says Constitutional Convention Will Resume Soon

INTRO: Officials in Burma say they will resume the national convention to draft a constitution at the end of the rainy season next month. The announcement comes just days after the firing of the nation's prime minister. Nancy-Amelia Collins in Bangkok has more.

TEXT: Senior junta leader Lieutenant General Thein Sein was quoted in the state-run media Saturday saying Rangoon will press ahead with the country's so-called road map to democracy.

Former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt unveiled the plan last year. However, he was forced out of office Tuesday and placed under house arrest over corruption allegations. He was replaced by military hardliner General Soe Win.

Khin Nyunt, who was also the head of military intelligence, is seen as being largely responsible for the start of a national convention to draft a new constitution.

The convention, which opened earlier this year, is seen as a first step on Burma's path to democracy. It has been suspended since July, but now is expected to resume late next month, after the end of the rainy season.

The convention has largely been viewed as a sham by many Western countries and has been boycotted by the democratic opposition, the National League for Democracy, or NLD

The government, also known as the SPDC, refused to allow opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to take part in the convention.

Sunai Phasuk, from Human Rights Watch in Bangkok, says the constitutional convention has little credibility because the NLD is not participating.

/// SUNAI ACT 1 ///

"And now with the removal of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who at least present token gesture about political dialogue, I don't think the promise of the SPDC will have any real meaning, apart from being a ploy to distract international pressure and criticism."

/// END ACT ///

The United States and the European Union have placed economic sanctions against Burma over its poor human rights record and have urged the government to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

Many analysts have said Khin Nyunt's dismissal is a move by the head of the junta, Than Shwe, to consolidate power and promote military hard-liners.

/// REST OPT ///

Sunai Phasuk says the rise of the military hard-liners has dashed any hopes of democratic reform in Burma.

/// SUNAI ACT 2 ///

"This is a clear rising of the hard-liners which everyone should be concerned that any hopes, any windows of opportunity that might have happened in the past, they all disappeared."

/// END ACT ///

Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962. The NLD won national elections in 1990, but the military never allowed it to take power. (SIGNED)

HK/NEB/NAC/KPD/RH