Burma's military regime fired a warning shot this week to let the United Nations and the international community know that it has no intention of caving into outside pressure for domestic political reform.
The junta's hardline stance was underscored during a rare press conference held earlier this week by the country's information minister, Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan, when he told reporters that its internal affairs were not open to outside influence.
He also confirmed what many analysts had long suspected in
recent months: the country's military rulers are in no mood to include pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, currently in her 12th year under house arrest, in discussions on the drafting of a new constitution designed to eventually pave the way for elections.
"No assistance or advice from other persons is required," Kyaw Hsan, a known close confidante of Burma's strongman General Than Shwe, said on Monday. The press conference was the first held by the junta since its brutal crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in late September.
The comments also came on the day the military-appointed Committee for Drafting a New Constitution was to begin work. This phase represents the third in a seven-step "Road Map" to democracy that the junta has been touting since it was first unveiled in August 2003. However no time limit has been placed on the committee's 54 appointees to finish their task.
The UN, however, has been pressing for a different outcome. Ibrahim Gambari, special UN envoy to Burma, informed the international community following two visits to Burma since the crackdown that Suu Kyi should be given a significant role to play in any political reform process. The Nigerian diplomat has urged the junta to release her from detention and involve her and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the constitution drafting process.
Initial signs suggested that the junta had warmed to Gambari's appeals, given that his mission was reportedly backed by some of the military regime's crucial regional allies, including China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. The junta permitted Suu Kyi to meet a government liaison officer, labor minister Aung Kyi, on three occasions as part of the UN's reconciliation effort. After one of these broadly publicized meetings, Suu Kyi described the discussions as "positive".
But those early hopes have now largely been dashed with the junta reverting to its more familiar role of stubbornly defending its entrenched positions. "The junta wants to demonstrate that it will not be cowed by international pressure and it doesn't want outside mediation," Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst living in exile in Thailand, said in an interview. "It is a sign that the [Myanmar] military has become more entrenched."
The reaction to recent events from the US government, which recently imposed new sanctions targeting specific junta members, was the first in what could be a litany of statements of condemnation and disappointment from Western capitals across the world. Even Beijing had publicly backed Gambari's mission to Burma on behalf of the international community and so had members of the 10-nation regional bloc ASEAN, of which Burma is a member.
"We condemn the [Myanmar] regime's rejection of meaningful participation for Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratic and ethnic minority leaders in the process of drafting a national constitution," the US Department of State spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement during a press briefing earlier this week. "The regime's December 3 statement to the diplomatic corps made clear that Senior General Than Shwe and his regime have no intention to begin a genuine, inclusive dialogue necessary for a democratic transition."
But this week's hard stance on political reform was not the only rebuff that the junta had in store for the UN. On Tuesday, the UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie left Rangoon after the military regime refused to extend his visa. Petrie had angered the regime by making a media statement that was released by the local UN office in late October expressing concerns about Burma's "deteriorating humanitarian condition".
The UN's view about increasing poverty in the country conveyed what was already widely known, considering that the mass pro-democracy protests in September had evolved out of small public demonstrations that were staged in mid-August after the junta removed fuel price subsidies and effectively raised the price of fuel by 500% overnight. Economic conditions have since continued to worsen, according to residents in Yangon. Many who survive on a daily wage are even cutting back on meals, they said.
The stakes have consequently increased for Gambari, who is due back in Burma later this month or in early 2008, to re-engage with the junta. "Unless Gambari can bring more leverage from the [UN] Security Council and China, his next mission will be a failure," says Win Min, a Burmese academic attached to Payap University, in Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai. "The junta feels it has less pressure on its back now that the ASEAN summit is over."
But there are growing signs within Burma that its oppressed people have little reason for optimism, Win Min said. "Most people have lost hope for political change to be achieved with the help of the UN and the international community. They know now that nothing will change as long as Than Shwe remains in power."
It is a view shaped by the current regime's long record of repression. After all, the first step in the "Road Map" to democracy was the reconvening of a National Convention to draft the new charter. The initial round of talks for this convention began 14 years ago as an effort to prevent the NLD party that Suu Kyi heads from forming a government after it secured a thumping mandate in the 1990 parliamentary elections a junta-backed party lost and the generals later annulled.