Myanmar 's dissidents plot strategy as junta holds charter talks

February 27 (AFP) - As Myanmar's military junta held secretive talks at home to frame a constitution as part of its so-called roadmap for democracy, dissidents backed by the United States met in Washington during the weekend pushing for the regime's ouster.

A stirring speech by a US State Department official set the tone for the meeting at George Washington University, whose attendees included the prime minister of Myanmar's government in exile set up after its landslide victory in 1990 elections, which were rejected by the military.

"While the dictators in Yangon may project an image of control, those who have fought tyranny around the world and those who fight this struggle right from within Burma know just how ephemeral and weak their power really is," said Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, using the old name of Myanmar.

"It can never ever defeat the very universal desire of freedom," said Dobriansky, who was a human rights crusader in the State Department when Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) scored a thumping victory in the country's last free elections but was denied power.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, epitomizes the "indomitable spirit" of Myanmar's freedom campaigners, Dobriansky said.

"When soldiers aimed rifles at her, Aung San Suu Kyi slowly and calmly walked through their ranks, ignoring the very expressed threat on her own life," she said, recalling an incident in 1989.

The Washington meeting was organized by the US Campaign for Burma, a global group of activists fighting to restore democracy in Myanmar.

It was aimed at drawing up strategies to drum up support for the democratic struggle in Myanmar from within and outside the country as well as the United Nations.

Non-governmental groups related tales of victimization of ethnic minority groups allegedly by military officers, including rape, extra-judicial killings, confiscation of land and property, forced labour and poppy cultivation and conscription of child soldiers.

Sein Win, the prime minister of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, said he wanted to build a young leadership that could take over from the junta if and when it collapses.

The first cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi and among those who won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats at stake in the elections said his group "placed highest importance for the preparations towards post-military transition in Burma."

He called on the United Nations, European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to exert greater pressure on the junta, saying joint diplomatic, investment and trade sanctions on Myanmar were vital.

The United States, which has branded Myanmar an "outpost of tyranny," has imposed an investment and trade ban on the Southeast Asian state while the European nations have limited sanctions, including denial of visas to Myanmar's ruling elite.

Sein Win said that to legalize their authority, Myanmar's military rulers were racing ahead with talks designed to frame a national constitution.

"The process of constitutional drafting has become an outright Imposition of military privileges and special powers in the future constitution," he said.

The UN, EU and US have all condemned the convention as a sham as it was attended mostly by representatives handpicked by the junta.

Steven Dun from World Aid group, told the meeting that some 600,000 to 1.5 million people in Myanmar, mostly from the Karen tribe, had been "displaced" from their homes because of military brutality.

The Karens, the largest and most powerful of Myanmar's ethnic minorities, has been fighting the government for decades.

"Girls have been taken away from their homes and gang raped by military officers and kept as sex slaves for up to four months," said Charm Tong, a member of a women's action group from Shan state where rights groups accuse the military of systematically raping tribal women.

She said the military reportedly tortured villagers who spoke to representatives of the Red Cross and human rights groups when they visited the state.

The junta's days are numbered, Dobriansky said, assuring the oppressed in Myanmar that President George W. Bush's administration would stand Solidly behind them.

"We do not know the exact day Burma's dictatorship will end but we know that it will end one day.

"Until then, the pople of Burma should know that they have our Unwavering support in their very fight for liberty," she said.

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