BANGKOK: Hopes for democratic reform in Myanmar appeared to have evaporated in May when the ruling junta arrested opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and crushed her party. Yet the end of the year has again brought possibilities of change.

The military regime announced at an international forum in Bangkok earlier this month that in the new year it would embark on its so-called “roadmap to democracy” by holding a national convention to draft a new constitution.

Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Win Aung said Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) would take part in the convention, a crucial move as the last convention collapsed in 1995 when the opposition withdrew.

The promise was greeted with cautious approval from the international community which had greeted the “roadmap” unveiled in August by newly appointed Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt with deep scepticism.

“We are encouraged by the commitment to want to take the necessary steps,” said United Nations special envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismail who brokered an ill-fated dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta in 2000.

Razali said he had been extremely frustrated at the slow pace of change in Myanmar but that now “things are moving, perhaps creepingly, but they are moving”.

The roadmap was announced by Khin Nyunt, the junta’s influential number three, as part of damage-control measures after the disastrous May crackdown on the opposition.

The year had begun fairly quietly in Myanmar, with Aung San Suu Kyi seven months out of an earlier period of house arrest, but relations with the regime cooled as her trips around country became increasingly confrontational.

Rising tensions then exploded with an attack on the Nobel peace laureate and her entourage in northern Myanmar by a thousands-strong band of pro-junta thugs, which unconfirmed eyewitness reports said left dozens dead.

What had apparently started as an attempt to frighten the increasingly confident and effective NLD after Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, had turned into a massive public relations blunder.

The United Nations and the European Union tightened sanctions against the impoverished state, sending the creaking economy into chaos, and its major donor Japan turned off the aid tap.

Most worryingly for the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), neighbouring nations which usually refrained from criticizing the junta began complaining that its behaviour was bringing the entire region into disrepute.

In response, it presented Khin Nyunt as the new prime minister, went on an international charm offensive and came up with the seven-point roadmap which included “free and fair” elections held under the new constitution.

There are grave doubts that the junta is serious about making any real democratic reforms, and most observers believe any changes would be largely cosmetic and leave the military still in ultimate control.—AFP