Myanmar junta chief foresees "new nation" down the road

Yangon - Myanmar junta chief Senior General Than Shwe said the military's political 'road map' to democracy was leading towards a 'new nation,' amid reports that two pro-military parties were being set up to contest the 2010 polls, officials said Saturday. 'A new nation is now very close despite some countries putting pressure on us,' Than Shwe said Friday in a speech to the annual mass meeting of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), held in Naypyitaw, the military's new capital situated about 350 kilometres north of Yangon. The USDA was formed on September 15, 1993, as a popular support base for the military. The association now claims to have 24 million members out of Myanmar's 56 million population, and has been cultivated to become the military's political arm for contesting elections. 'We will form two political parties for the 2010 elections,' said a USDA member, who asked to remain anonymous. The movement is an essential competent in the military's plans to introduce 'democracy' to Myanmar. Initial steps included drafting a new constitution having it approved by a national referendum in May. Both processes were dubbed shams by many international observers because the charter-drafting process was controlled by the military, and the referendum supervised by the army resulted in an absurdly high approval rate exceeding 90 per cent. The referendum drew intense criticism from Western democracies as it was pushed through in mid-May in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis that devastated the Irrawaddy delta region, leaving almost 140,000 people dead or missing. The constitution has cemented the military's dominant role in future governments by guaranteeing it a high percentage of appointed senators who can block all controversial legislation. Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, when army strongman General Ne Win overthrew the country's first post-independence prime minister U Nu with a coup. Although the military bowed to international pressure to hold an election in 1990, it refused to acknowledge the outcome. The National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 1990 polls by a landslide, but the military junta blocked it from taking office by claiming that a new constitution would be needed before civilian rule could work. The junta took 18 years to come up with a new charter, and Suu Kyi - a Nobel peace laureate - has spent 13 of those years under house arrest.