Burma’s military regime fired a warning shot last week to let the United Nations and the international community know that it will not yield to pressure on domestic political reform. The junta’s unequivocal stance was confirmed during a rare press conference held by the country’s information minister, Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan, when he told reporters that the doors of the South-east Asian nation were not open to influence from outside.

He also confirmed what many analysts had long suspected in the recent months: the military rulers of Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, are in no mood to welcome the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, currently in her 12th year under house arrest, to discussions on the drafting of the new constitution. “No assistance or advice from other persons is required,” Kyaw Hsan, who is a close confidante of Burma’s strongman, Gen. Than Shwe, said on Monday. The press conference was the first held by the junta since the brutal crackdown of peaceful pro-democracy protesters late September.

The comments came on the day the military-appointed Committee for Drafting a New Constitution was to begin work. This phase is the third in a seven-step “roadmap” to democracy that the junta has been touting since it was unveiled in August, 2003. No time limit has been placed for the 54 appointees of the committee to finish their task. The UN, however, has been pressing for a different outcome. Ibrahim Gambari, a special UN envoy, had informed the international community following two visits to Burma since the crackdown that Suu Kyi should be given a significant role to play in the political reform process. The Nigerian diplomat had urged the junta to release her from detention and to involve her in the constitution drafting process.

Initial signs suggested that the junta had warmed up to Gambari’s appeals, given that his mission was backed by some of the military regime’s allies, such as China and the governments in South-east Asia. The junta permitted Suu Kyi to meet a government liaison officer, Labour Minister Aung Kyi, on three occasions as part of a reconciliation effort. After one of these broadly publicised meetings, she described it as “positive.”

But the early hope that emerged after these encounters has 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. “It is a sign that the Burmese military has become more entrenched.”

The reaction from the US government to this week’s turn of events was the first in what could be a litany of statements of condemnation and disappointment from capitals across the world. After all Beijing had backed Gambari’s mission on behalf of the international community and so had the members of the 10-nation regional bloc, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma is a member.

“We condemn the Burmese 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 on Tuesday. — IPS