AFP-Myanmar minister warns of moves

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Subject: AFP-Myanmar minister warns of moves to short circuit reforms

Myanmar minister warns of moves to short circuit reforms
SINGAPORE, Oct 1 (AFP) - A senior Myanmar minister said here Friday that the
country's military junta will hold democratic elections as promised but
warned Yangon would not tolerate a western-style political system.
Declining to comment on Friday's storming of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok
by armed men, Brigadier General David Abel said dissidents at home
considered democracy a "commodity" and wanted to short-circuit the reform
process.

"Political reforms will come, definitely they will come because we have
promised the people," Abel told AFP at the sidelines of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) trade ministers meeting which he was
attending.

"We have promised them a market economy, we have promised them a democratic
system, we'll deliver but we want to deliver in good shape, good form.

"If we just say this is democracy, you take it, the fellows don't know what
it is and they'll misuse it," said Abel, a member of the Myanmar junta
officially known as the State Peace and Development Council.

He said that democratic elections in Myanmar would be part of reforms to be
introduced after the fourth and final consultations with the people on
drawing up a national constitution.

"If they (dissidents) want to short cut, if they want an engine that they
like, they say they want an American engine, we say: No, we use our own
engine to pull our (train).

"But we are going to the same destination. How can they impose such a thing
on us?."

A group of 12 armed men, believed to be exiled Myanmar activists, stormed
the Myanmar embassy in downtown Bangkok Friday, taking an estimated 20 staff
hostage.

A number of exiled Myanmar activist groups use Thailand as the base for
their efforts to topple Yangon junta, making regular calls for democracy and
the convening of a parliament elected in 1990 polls.

The polls were won in a landslide by the National League for Democracy (NLD)
led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, but the military have refused
to hand over power.

Abel said the NLD had to pay the price for walking out of the national
convention that was aimed at devising the country's constitution.

"When they broke away, NLD had the largest representation in the national
convention. They walked out but the rest of the bodies in the convention
remained.

"This makes a big difference. They thought when they walked out, the rest
will follow. Now they say they want a national dialogue, they can say what
they want in the convention. It is a democracy, and everything is voted
for," he said.