SCMP-Opposition parliament gives ju

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

South China Morning Post
Saturday  September 19  1998

Opposition parliament gives junta last chance 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok 
A Burmese opposition committee's decision to give itself the powers of a
"people's parliament" is provocative, but leaves ruling generals with a
last chance to start political negotiations, diplomats in Rangoon said
yesterday.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said on Thursday
that a 10-member committee had been mandated to act on behalf of an elected
assembly.

One of its first proclamations was to declare all laws passed in the past
decade illegal without the parliament's approval.

"This is very bold, but it is not quite the same thing as saying, 'We are
now a parliament'. It is the penultimate step," said one diplomat.

The junta, created 10 years ago yesterday, has repeatedly warned it would
react sharply if the opposition attempted to convene parliament.

"This is the latest in a long list of devices to try to prod the regime
down the road to dialogue. Even at this late stage, the price for not going
ahead with a parliament could be the beginning of a political discussion
with the military," said one observer in the Burmese capital.

The representative committee was created because most of the remaining NLD
MPs have been caught in a round-up of more than 800 opposition supporters
since the party's warning last month that it would convene the parliament
elected in 1990.

There has been speculation that elements in the military establishment
preferred dialogue to brute force. But this has always appeared to amount
to differences over tactics, rather than any real division.

The regime is expected to persist with what one observer described as
"threats and sweet reasonableness".

The military - which killed thousands of pro-democracy protesters a decade
ago and regularly incarcerates critics - even apologised this week to
arrested opposition supporters.

It saves its vitriol for Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, calling her this week "a bad
mother and a foreigner" who is "engaged in subversive acts to undermine the
sovereignty" of Burma. 

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues are also trying to push the
international community into taking even firmer measures against the
regime.

A spokesman for the junta said yesterday: "They [the NLD] are trying to
make the Government take harsh steps against them. Only then will they be
able to highlight anti-government moves at the UN General Assembly [next
week]."

The West has offered sympathy, but opposition strategists would like to see
sanctions boosted.

However, given the paucity of Western involvement in Burma's shrunken
economy, the attitude of fellow members of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) may be critical.

In the past, ASEAN sympathy for the democracy movement has appeared
lukewarm, even hostile. But the organisation's ability to shun
self-criticism has cracked after the downfall of its de facto leader,
former Indonesian president Suharto, and the political realignments caused
by Asia's economic crisis.

Thailand and the Philippines used the recent ASEAN summit to back the West
in condemning the regime for not talking to the NLD.