Decade after polls, no democracy in Myanmar

By Grant Peck

YANGON (AP): At the rate things are going, old people here may someday be telling their disbelieving grandchildren of the once- in-a-lifetime opportunity they had to vote on May 27, 1990.

Even now, just 10 years afterward, it seems like a myth, since the same grim-looking men in the same green uniforms rule the country as they have since 1962, when the army overthrew a democratic government that had been in place since independence 14 years earlier.

"We already enjoyed parliamentary democracy for 14 years, but the younger generation doesn't know about the value of parliamentary democracy," laments Tin Oo, vice chairman of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

Myanmar, also called Burma, hasn't had a freely elected government in 38 years, and no one is promising one soon. But a decade ago, things looked different.

On election day in 1990, more than 72 percent of the country's eligible voters turned out to cast ballots.

Overwhelmingly, they voted for the NLD, the anti-dictatorship party born out of a pro-democracy movement that took root two years earlier in weeks of street protests that were crushed by the military.

The election was a rare moment of hope for Myanmar, where the pattern of troubled politics was set when independence leader Gen. Aung Sun was assassinated by rivals six months before the country was freed from Britain in 1948.

Ethnic insurgency helped cause chronic instability. The socialist military regime installed in 1962 then turned what had been one of the region's richest countries into an economic backwater.

When that government shattered in the bloody street unrest in 1988, a new generation of generals took its place, but the country was traumatized by the bloodletting that accompanied the return to law and order.

In an attempt to gain international legitimacy, the junta held elections in 1990. The NLD won 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats. The military-sponsored National United Party won just 10.

The league's victory came even though its charismatic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi -- Aung San's daughter -- was then under house arrest and her deputy, former army brig. Tin Oo, in prison.

Kyaw Sann, a government spokesman, said at the time: "Any government that is formed according to the constitution will be strong and stable. It is totally up to the elected members. They can move as quickly as they like and take power."

But two months later, when the NLD moved to fulfill its mandate, it was stopped. The military decreed that:

* It continued to held power under martial law;

* It was not bound by any constitution;

* It would hold on to power until it had ensured that a sufficiently strong constitution was in place; and

* The sole duty of the elected representatives was to draft a state constitution.

The military began arresting and harassing NLD members, including the elected representatives.

The political battle has since looked like a war of attrition.

According to a government spokesman last week, just 169 representatives -- 110 from the NLD, 20 from other parties and 39 independents -- now remain valid members of a would-be parliament.

Thirty-four have died, 97 "voluntarily resigned from elected membership" and 185 members were disqualified, said Col. Than Tun. More lower-ranking members have been arrested over the past several weeks.

The military has said the path to democracy lies in a National Convention to draft a new constitution, which it convened in January 1993. Only 99 of the 702 delegates were elected lawmakers -- the government hand-picked the rest.

The NLD had 88 representatives but withdrew in December 1995 after it was clear they were supposed to rubber-stamp diktats to prolong military rule. The convention has done little since, and has no deadline.

The NLD decided in October 1998 to organize its own 10-member surrogate parliament, which infuriated the military. More than 850 party members were rounded up, and 69 of the 110 NLD legislators are still being held at government "guesthouses," a lighter form of detention than prison.

The government has refused to speak with Suu Kyi, who was freed from house arrest in 1995. Her activities remain tightly restricted. She is regarded as a traitor by the generals for supporting international economic sanctions to force democratic changes.

Sanctions by the United States and European Union have done little except increase the stubbornness of the generals and drive them into a closer relationship with China.

But neither has membership in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, more sympathetic to the military's nationalistic line, eased the junta's sense of isolation and belief that they are defending the country from U.S.-led neocolonialism disguised as democracy.

Tin Oo told The Associated Press in an interview this month that the NLD would try to celebrate the anniversary Saturday of its election win, but expects the authorities to obstruct it.

"Ten years is a very auspicious occasion, so they may give some sort of restrictions to keep people from coming to our headquarters," Tin Oo said.