Published in Washington, D.C.
May 10, 2008
Burma presses on with voting
Blocks entry of aid agencies
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Burma's military junta pressed ahead today with a referendum on a controversial constitution designed to tighten its grip on power in spite of devastating damage from this week's cyclone.
Foreign relief efforts, meanwhile, remain stymied amid the junta's concerns that outsiders may provide assistance to opponents of the referendum on a new constitution which will entrench the military regime's domination.
"The Burmese government is blocking international aid efforts in part to keep foreigners out until the voting is over," Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said today.
"But those without clean water, food or medical care can't wait any longer for help. They need it now. It's time to pull the plug on the referendum and open up to aid workers and their supplies," she said.
Burma has instead ordered its 500,000-strong, battle-hardened army to secure the country for tomorrow's vote for a new constitution and has monopolized the country's media to explain why citizens should vote "yes."
The new constitution will effectively allow the junta to retain its dictatorial role, which began after a 1962 army coup, after which the name of the country was changed to Myanmar.
Increasingly harsh demands by the U.S., United Nations, non-governmental aid agencies, and others to allow foreign relief workers into Burma have been ignored, despite a spiraling death toll after Cyclone Nargis killed tens of thousands of people, and an estimated one million survivors struggling without help.
Burma's junta apparently fears U.S. and other foreign aid groups will include subversive agents who could secretly give satellite telephones, weapons, cash and other help to Burmese dissidents and pro-democracy activists Ñ a perception frequently expressed in government-controlled media about Americans and others even before the cyclone.
The junta said 22,997 people perished in the cyclone and 42,119 were missing in southern Burma, mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country. The U.S. Embassy in Burma estimated the toll may reach 100,000.
Bloated, rotting corpses today were floating in salty water, where many of Burma's rice farms remained flooded by tidal swells brought ashore when the Bay of Bengal cyclone whipped the sea-level south coast on May 2 and 3.
A trickle of aid has been allowed from countries friendly to the junta, such as Thailand, India, China, Bangladesh, Laos, Singapore and Italy.
Nations perceived as enemies, especially the U.S. and most other European powers, were told to deliver cash and boxes of aid to the stricken commercial port of Rangoon, but no foreign personnel to oversee distribution.
Increasingly vocal international criticism against the regime has done little to budge the generals into issuing visas so foreigners can help relieve the suffering of survivors on the devastated Irrawaddy River delta.
The government Tuesday said it would hold the referendum in parts of the country not affected by Cyclone Nargis.
It postponed the vote by two weeks in the areas hardest hit by the cyclone.
The new, severe, 194-page draft constitution has taken the regime about 10 years to write and offer for public scrutiny.
"The previous constitutions had some defects regarding the rights of national [minority] races, and that provoked armed insurrection and destabilization," the regime said today, referring to ethnic guerrillas fighting for autonomy or independence along Burma's borders during the past 50 years.
The constitution's opening clauses call "for the Tatmadaw [military] to be able to participate in the national leadership role of the State."
Twenty-five percent of the seats in the new Parliament's upper and lower houses would be filled by military appointees, chosen by the armed forces' commander-in-chief.
Other seats can be filled by elected officials, but military officers would be allowed as candidates and enjoy an advantage over civilians, thus increasing the overall number of troops running the country.
Similarly, one-quarter of all state and regional parliaments would also be hand-picked by the commander-in-chief.
Ministers for defense, interior, border affairs and their deputies are reserved for military officers, to ensure they wield the real power.
The world's most famous political prisoner, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, would be blocked from ever ruling Burma, despite her National League for Democracy party winning a landslide election victory in 1990.
She has been under house arrest in Rangoon, also known as Yangon, for 12 of the past 18 years.
The new constitution says she cannot be president because her late husband, academic Michael Aris, was British, and their two sons currently hold British citizenship Ñ though Mrs. Suu Kyi remains a Burmese citizen.
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Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book titled, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent