Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Myanmar's military government adjourned the country's constitution-drafting convention yesterday after almost two months of deliberations, delegates said.
Convention chairman Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, a leading member of the ruling junta, said in his closing speech that the talks would adjourn immediately and resume at year-end, delegates said. Thein Sein told delegates the session was adjourned to give the convening commission time to prepare for future sessions and study proposals. The convention would resume "after farmers have finished their cultivation and harvest, and before the end of the year", delegates quoted the general as saying. Myanmar's harvest period is October and November.
Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the junta suspended the existing charter after violently suppressing mass pro-democracy protests. The government says the constitution-drafting convention represents a step towards democracy. But critics argue it cannot reflect the desires of the people when the main opposition party - Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) - and other key sectors of society are not taking part. Even Myanmar's neighbours in Southeast Asia have become increasingly irate over the junta's failure to deliver on long-promised reforms.
"When we talk about a national convention, it should be a genuine national convention, not a fake one," said Karen National Union (KNU) secretary-general Mahn Sha Lar Phan. "If it were accepted nationwide, then we could accept a national convention." The KNU is a separatist group still battling Yangon for independence and democracy, and was not invited to the convention. The KNU dismissed the talks outside Yangon as fake and called on the junta to declare a nationwide ceasefire.