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Laws aim to tighten army grip, say



Subject: Laws aim to tighten army grip, say exiles

Saturday  February 13  1999

Burma
Laws aim to tighten army grip, say exiles

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok
The junta will ram through a constitution designed to enshrine military rule
this year, paving the way for fresh elections in 2000, the exiled Burma
Lawyers' Council said yesterday.

"They have seen other regimes crumble in the region. They are determined it
won't happen to them," said U Thein Oo, justice minister of the Burmese
government-in-exile.

"New century, new government - that is their idea," he said.

The Government had finally calculated that overt internal opposition had
been so crushed by waves of arrests and massive intimidation that it could
now risk setting its controversial rule in some legal concrete, the lawyers
said.

Rangoon favoured "an authoritarian centralist Government with few checks and
balances . . . [with the military] above the constitution and above the
law," said the council in a statement marking Union Day - a key step on the
road to independence from Britain in 1948.

When the junta emerged in 1988 - extending 26 years of military rule - it
originally claimed it intended caretaker rule only until fresh elections
produced a civilian government.

The generals said an elected government could operate under either of two
constitutions - that drawn up in 1947 or another drafted in 1976.

But they swiftly backtracked when opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy smashed their own Union Party in the 1990
poll, the generals' party winning only 10 out of 485 seats in Parliament.

The regime declared the existing constitutions out of date and invested a
hand-picked National Convention to craft a legal framework to allow it to
dominate parliament and to exclude Ms Aung San Suu Kyi from holding high
political office.

The on-off convention that first met in January 1993, has been frequently
suspended, providing the junta with an important excuse to delay political
reform.

Official papers show that the generals have plumped for a presidential
system similar to the one that kept president Suharto in power for decades
in Indonesia, said U Aung Htoo, secretary of the lawyers' council.


"They are imitating the Indonesian model. Ultimately, it failed for Suharto
but they dare not change it - they can't stomach real democracy," said Mr U
Aung Htoo.

The council described the national convention as "a farce".

Its statement added that, once the constitution was adopted, "there will be
no further debate".

Under the junta's draft constitution, the army chief of staff has the right
to appoint a quarter of all members of the upper and lower houses and to
name the defence, interior and border affairs ministers.

The president would be elected by Parliament and may not be married to a
foreigner or have lived outside the country for 20 years - clauses written
to deny Ms Aung San Suu Kyi power.

The draft was tricked out with vague legal phrases yet did not guarantee
democratic procedures or even spell out the assembly's legislative powers,
the lawyers said.

"It is an ugly constitution designed to prolong Burma's nightmare," said Mr
U Aung Htoo.