Burma’s military regime is coming under fire for the language in a new constitution to be approved at a national referendum on May 10. The full text of the charter was made public only a month ahead of the plebiscite. Articles that have aroused anger deal with attempts by the junta to legitimise its role as the supreme political authority in the troubled South-east Asian country. Such clauses make the constitution’s promise of seeking to usher a new democratic landscape meaningless, say critics.

Article No 445 tops the list of concerns for the Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC) and groups like the US-based Global Justice Centre (GJC). “No legal action shall be taken against those (either individuals or groups who are members of SLORC and SPDC) who officially carried out their duties according to their responsibilities,” states this article.

SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council) and SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) are the official names the governing arm of the regime has been known by since military leaders staged a coup in 1988 to grab power. The regime that it overthrew was itself a military one that had come to power following a 1962 coup.

“That clause is to provide immunity to the junta for all the human rights violations it has committed since 1988,” says Aung Htoo, general secretary of the BLC. “The new constitution will be meaningless if the perpetrators of violence can enjoy immunity after it is approved. What is the difference for the people, who are the victims? Nothing.”

It also undermines the hope of Burma transforming from a dictatorship to a democracy, he explained. “A constitution for a post-conflict society has to give justice and genuine national reconciliation a priority. That is what happened in South Africa. But the new constitution

offers little to move Burma away from its current conflicts.”

On Monday, the BLC and GJC issued a statement denouncing the military regime of Myanmar, as Burma is also known, for trying to evade “criminal prosecution” through the constitution. “There is ample evidence that the military regime has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and potentially even genocide through forced relocations, torture, rape, enforced disappearance and extermination,” they said.

Leaders of the Burma’s ethnic communities are as perturbed after discovering that the junta’s much vaunted promise to create regional assemblies through the constitution amounts to legislative bodies without teeth. The new charter is set to create 14 assemblies in areas that are home to the major ethnic groups, marking a first offer of political space to the non-Burman minorities since the country gained independence from the British in 1948.

“The regional assemblies will be under the junta, which has the power to appoint a fourth of the members and the chief minister for the region,” says David Taw, joint general secretary of the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC), an umbrella body for the seven major ethnic groups. “Most of the people would like to choose their own chief minister through a ballot.”

The space for economic activity to meet the needs of the ethnic communities is also restrained, Taw added. “The local people will not be able to pursue their economic activity freely. It is a set back to our hope of achieving a federal system of government.” The unresolved question of genuine political space for Burma’s ethnic communities has dogged the country since independence, resulting in bloody separatist conflicts that have lasted over six decades. “The attempt to adopt a constitution to lengthen the military dictatorship will (create) more problems,” the ENC declared in a recent statement. “It will also lengthen the 60 year long civil war caused by breaching the self-determination rights of the ethnic nationalities.”

The current constitution has taken 15 years in the making, a record created by the junta to stall the country’s democratic parties, led by the detained Aung San Suu Kyi, claiming a stake in running the country. The junta refused to recognise the outcome of a parliamentary election in 1990, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide. Instead, the military created a national convention soon after to draft a new constitution. The current charter is Burma’s third, following the 1947 document, which was drafted by the country’s resistance fighters ahead of independence from British colonialism, and the 1974 document, which was shaped by the military dictator at the time, Gen. Ne Win.

The junta, for its part, appears confident that it has drafted the best constitution for Burma. “Approving the constitution is the responsibility of all citizens in the country. All who support our national interests must vote in favour,” declared the page-one headline of a state-run newspaper on the week the referendum campaign was officially launched. — IPS