Thai Foreign Minister’s stand that Burma should complete drafting its constitution and restore democracy before becoming a full ASEAN member is most commendable and should be supported by other ASEAN governments

Thai Foreign Minister, Amnuay Viravan said yesterday that the Burmese government should complete drafting a constitution and bring democracy to the country before becoming a full ASEAN member.

He said the ruling SLORC regime would be more welcome in the international community after it had completed the constitution-drafting process and held a general election.

According to Amnuay, SLORC used to explain and assure ASEAN that it is going to have a constitution and that the draft is already 75 per cent complete.

The Thai Foreign Minister’s stand that Burma should complete drafting its constitution and restore democracy before becoming a full ASEAN member is most commendable and should be supported by other ASEAN governments and be adopted as an ASEAN stand.

It is most apt for ASEAN to press SLORC on its drafting of a democratic constitution for Burma, as more than four years have passed since the first establishment of the National Constitutional Convention and there are fears that SLORC has no intention to produce any draft constitution until the next century. This is because SLORC leaders had spoken with approval that the 1974 Constitution had taken a history of 12 years!

When SLORC has completed drafting a constitution which had promised a multi-party democratic system, and held a general election which is universally recognised internationally as democratic, ASEAN would have full justification, honour and pride to admit Burma into ASEAN as it would mean the success of the ASEAN “constructive engagement” policy to improve the democratic situation in Burma.

In this connection, for SLORC’s constitution-drafting to pave the way towards democratisation and national reconciliation, the various defects of the constitution-drafting process as well as the composition and powers of the National Constitutional Convention which led to the boycott by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) should be rectified.

Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD had sound and legitimate reasons for boycotting the National Constitutional Convention in October last year, which included:

• The elected representatives of the people constitute only 15.24 per cent of the delegates and thus were permanently in the minority.

Neither the objectives of the convention nor its working procedures were drawn up in consultation with delegates.

• Papers to be presented at the Convention were censored and had to be corrected in accordance with the wishes of the authorities.

• Decisions were laid down before an issue had been fully discussed.

• The Convention was making decisions not only on broad principles for the proposed constitution but also on its details.

• There was no fixed timetable for the Convention.

When the ASEAN Secretary-General, Datuk Ajit Singh, visits Myanmar in the coming week, he should seek the views of the SLORC leaders whether the military junta is prepared to respond to the public initiative of Aung San Suu Kyi for dialogue and to invite her and NLD leaders to take part in a meaningful drafting of the Burmese constitution.

(31/10/96)