Myanmar faces democracy test

Myanmar faces democracy test

YANGON (Reuter): Myanmar's battered and repressed democracy movement faces a key test this week with the reconvening of a military-sponsored convention to draft a new constitution, diplomats said.

Nearly 700 delegates, mostly handpicked by Myanmar's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council, will convene today for the fifth session of the National Convention which has been meeting intermittently since January 1993 to draft guidelines for a new constitution.

Dismissed by most diplomats and Myanmarese dissidents as a "farce" and a "sham", the convention only convenes at the will of the military and has no deadline for the constitution to be drawn up.

The principal opposition party, the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, last week spoke out against the process, saying the convention as it stands is undemocratic.