BURMA: On the face of it, Burma's hardline military government will soon step aside, relinquishing its decades-long grip on power in favour of a multiparty democratic system.
Fifteen years after the military cancelled the results of the country's first and only free elections, a new national convention charged with drawing up a democratic constitution paving the way for "free and fair elections", will kick off on December 5th in Rangoon.
Burmese prime minister Lieut Gen Soe Win says his government is "fully committed to the successful implementation of the road map for national reconciliation and democratic transition, including the national convention".
So why is the pro-democracy movement in Burma so unhappy? It says the much-vaunted road map to democracy is deeply flawed, its terms having been dictated by the ruling junta without consultation. The plan calls for the creation of a so-called "disciplined democracy" with a built-in "leadership role" for the military.
It awards 25 per cent of the seats in any new parliament to the army, while also demanding that the military permanently hold on to the key defence, security and border portfolios.
The road map also proposes that the constitution excludes anyone from standing for parliament who has not lived permanently in Burma for the past 25 years or who has foreign-born spouses or children. That includes Aung San Suu Kyi, the veteran leader of the popular National League for Democracy.
The junta has loaded the deck at the constitutional convention by hand-picking many delegates or by banning critics of its restrictive terms. It has also refused to release Suu Kyi or other leaders from detention ahead of the convention, which has led the NLD and others to announce their intention to boycott it.
On "national reconciliation" and an end to decades of civil war, analysts are again deeply critical of the regime's actions, saying that peace agreements the junta has signed with the many ethnic rebel groups are not being honoured.
The economic incentives offered to some rebel factions to make peace are often abandoned or amended to favour a particular warlord, creating bitterness and fuelling internal divisions. In addition, government forces have been increasing their numbers in recent months in the previously autonomous Kachin, Karen and Shan states and in other ethnic areas, in breach of their ceasefire agreements. According to human rights groups, these soldiers are engaged in forced labour, sexual abuses, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings, claims dismissed as baseless.
Most analysts say mounting evidence points to a junta strategy to control its ethnic opponents through divide and rule, while introducing a form of tightly-controlled "democracy" aimed at deflecting criticism, earning the junta friends abroad and helping to secure the generals' long-term survival. To that end, the regime is expected to officially hand power over to a hand-picked civilian administration while it pulls the strings from behind.
The recent relocation of the capital from Rangoon to Pyinmana is thought to be part of this twofold strategy. The regime, in its mountainous retreat, will be safe from the type of mass protests in Rangoon that nearly toppled them in 1988, while also being closer to ethnic regions thus better able to control them.
The new "democratic" civilian government will shield the generals while allowing them to hold on to power.