No news is good news for Myanmar talks

By Chris Johnson

YANGON (Reuters): Landmark talks between Myanmar's military government and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi offer the best hope for democracy and full engagement with the rest of the world for more than a decade.

The talks, which began in October, have already produced an extraordinary result: the two sides have agreed not to discuss their private meetings or comment on their progress, and they are sticking to the deal. Open hostilities have virtually ceased.

For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Myanmar's state-run newspapers no longer carry daily diatribes condemning Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) as "axe handles" and traitors out to destroy the country.

Public criticism of the military by the NLD -- which won Myanmar's last election in 1990 by a wide margin but has never been allowed to govern -- has also dried up.

"So far the signs are promising and we assume the talks are making progress," said one senior Yangon-based diplomat.

"No news appears to be good news."

The government and NLD may not be speaking about the talks but they have sent some very clear messages.

At the end of January the government released 85 political prisoners, including NLD vice chairman Tin Oo, from detention.

Sources close to the NLD told Reuters on Friday the party would curtail its traditional public events to mark the Union Day national holiday on Feb. 12, a day that usually sees ritual denunciations by the party of the military.

The sources said the government might choose to mark March 27, celebrated by the military as Armed Forces Day and by the pro- democracy opposition as Resistance Day, with another significant goodwill gesture.

On March 27, 1945, Aung San, Suu Kyi's father and Myanmar's independence hero, called on his national resistance fighters to throw the occupying Japanese forces out of the country.

"We think March 27 could see an important gesture," one source told Reuters. "That day is symbolic for everyone."

Diplomats say Myanmar has between 1,600 and 1,700 political prisoners, 35 of whom were politicians elected in the 1990 polls.

Both sides will need to show evidence that the encounters are making progress if they are to keep their supporters on side.

That will not be easy because there is little common ground.

For years the military has insisted that Myanmar is not ready for democracy and needs a special constitution that guarantees the pre-eminence of the armed forces.

Any new parliament should have 25 percent of seats reserved for the military and Myanmar's more than one dozen ethnic minorities each need guaranteed representation as well, it says.

The remaining seats would be freely contested, but the military expects its own organizations, including its Union Solidarity and Development Association, to stand for election.

The NLD rejects this formula, which it says would not give it enough seats to win power even if it produced a landslide.

These positions appeared inflexible until a few months ago.

Then, in October, the government initiated direct talks with Suu Kyi, something they had refused to do for six years.

Diplomats and opposition sources give much credit for breaking the deadlock to governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), particularly Singapore and Malaysia.

ASEAN admitted Myanmar in 1997 and has pursued a controversial policy of flexible engagement with the Yangon generals, arguing investment and dialogue would encourage change.

Embarrassed by lack of progress in Myanmar, ASEAN stepped up pressure on Myanmar last year and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad appears to have persuaded the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) that dialogue was the best option.

Diplomats say the ASEAN message may have been made more palatable by offers of aid to help Myanmar's battered economy, which is suffering double-digit inflation, very low growth and a downward spiral in the value of the currency, the kyat.

The UN Secretary-General's special envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail, also Malaysian, applied a little extra gentle pressure.

Suu Kyi appears to have held at least two meetings a month with SPDC leaders. She has probably met the head of military intelligence, Secretary One of the SPDC, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, twice and maybe also SPDC Chairman Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

Under virtual house arrest since September, Suu Kyi has probably been escorted from her home for the secret talks, diplomats say.

Other NLD leaders under house arrest such as NLD chairman Aung Shwe and Tin Oo may also have taken part in the dialogue.

Diplomats suggest the talks probably involve four stages.

"The first step was contact and that has been accomplished," said one senior source close to the NLD. "Then there is a process of confidence building, with a series of gestures."

After this, the parties need a dialogue on an agenda and only then can real negotiations towards specific targets begin.

"The process", as all sides describe it, may be very long.

Mahathir says an election is a long way off:

"It should be held in a few years," he told Japan's Mainichi Shimbun newspaper last month.