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POLITICS: Thai Coup Shakes Burma

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Oct 10 2006 (IPS) - The bloodless coup by Thailand’s military last month has the potential to undermine Burma’s ruling junta as another round of talks to shape a new constitution gets under way.

A new constitution in Burma has been claimed as a step towards democratic reform. And in Thailand, Bangkok’s generals announced soon after deposing twice-elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in the Sep. 19 putsch that a new charter leading to a parliamentary poll will be ready late next year.

It will be Thailand’s 18th constitution since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

Two contrasting political environments are emerging in Thailand and Burma since Thailand’s military appointed former army commander Surayud Chulanont prime minister. Surayud has not resorted to repressive measures such as limiting freedom of speech and association, despite restrictions declared by the Thai generals after taking power.

The response to a street demonstration outside the U.S. embassy late Sunday morning by workers from a lingerie factory suggests the tone Thailand’s military-backed leader hopes to strike. About 800 employees carried out their protest against the impending closure of Gina Form Bra that supplies to U.S. clothing giants like Victoria’s Secret and Gap, despite a ban on such public rallies.

The only visible sign of new security measures was a large presence of Thai intelligence operatives. They photographed, filmed and questioned several demonstrators, foreign labour rights activists and also a journalist covering the event.

Commentaries by academics, legal experts, democracy activists and former parliamentarians in local dailies on the nature of a new constitution are suggestive of an openness in debate, without the writers fearing a jackboot response from the coup leaders.

Burma’s junta has left no space for such political expression of views on the National Convention, as the constitution-drafting exercise is called. A Convention meeting began Tuesday after an eight-month break.

Over the weekend information minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsann delivered a warning that illustrates the Burmese environment. “We will crush whoever intends to destroy the National Convention,” he was quoted as telling reporters. The warning came days after the junta arrested six prominent pro-democracy activists.

The current round of the Convention follows the U.S. government success in formally placing concerns about human rights abuse in Burma before the U.N. Security Council.

“They have never wanted and always banned political debates and activities related to the constitution in the country,” Myint Thein, a member of the Burma Lawyers Council based near the Thai-Burma border told IPS. “This repression is complete. They do not want the people to have any say in the new constitution.”

The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is officially known, has not hidden its intentions in drafting the new constitution, he said. “The SPDC does not want to transfer power and they want to hold on to it for the future.”

Harsh censorship laws are also in place within the National Convention. The 1,000 delegates handpicked to participate in the drafting are prohibited from criticising the format or agenda of the Convention, or from offering an alternative charter. Violators face a jail term of five to 20 years.

The ruling generals in Burma, which they have renamed Myanmar, began the constitution drafting exercise in 1993 after refusing to recognise the results of a 1990 parliamentary election where opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won with a thumping majority. That poll came after a bloody crackdown by the military on a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, in which hundreds were killed, many of them students.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) walked out of the constitutional convention in 1995 in the face of the restrictions. Loss of credibility brought convention procedures to a halt in 1996. The convention was restarted in January 2004 following international condemnation, even from regional neighbours of the growing brutality of the SPDC.

“They had to do something in the wake of being condemned,” Aung Naing Oo, an independent Burmese political analyst living in exile, said in an interview. “But even after resuming, they have never given a time when they will finish drafting the constitution. They feel threatened by what the constitution will imply. Because it will mean devolution of the power they have.”

The junta has been open about its intention to remain in power even as it talks of opening the country politically, he said. “The military is demanding special prerogatives to be recognised in the constitution, such as the public will not be able to scrutinise its role.”

The SPDC is also pushing to guarantee 25 percent of all seats in legislative bodies for the Burmese military, Aung Naing Oo said. “They want the power to appoint their representatives while the others will be elected.”

The coup in Thailand will make it more difficult for the Burmese generals to get away with the hurdles they keep placing to stop the country’s march towards democracy. “The race is now on in this political exercise, given what the Thai military has declared,” says Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Network on Burma, a regional human rights watchdog. “It doesn’t look good for the Burmese in this tale of two juntas.”