Suu Kyi Calls for real democracy

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Suu Kyi calls for real democracy in Myanmar

 .c Kyodo News Service    

YANGON, Feb. 12 (Kyodo) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on
Thursday urged her country's people to work for the early realization of a
genuinely democratic state. 

Suu Kyi, who is secretary general of the National League for Democracy (NLD),
which won the 1990 general election but was denied power by the military, made
the remarks at a celebration at her house to commemorate the 51st anniversary
of Union Day. 

The celebration was attended by nearly 500 persons, including foreign
diplomats. 

On Feb. 12, 1947, representatives of Myanmar's various ethnic groups signed an
agreement at a meeting in Panglong in Shan State, eastern Myanmar, that they
would become a united nation independent of Britain. 

The British has wanted to retain frontier areas, where most of the ethnic
minorities lived. 

Burma, as it was then called, regained independence from Britain on Jan. 4,
1948, after more than 100 years of colonial rule. 

Suu Kyi said a democratic state should be created in accordance with a new
constitution written with consensus of all nationalities. 

The ruling junta, now called the State Peace and Development Council and
formerly known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, in January 1993
established the National Convention, a body ostensibly tasked with drawing up
the principles for a new constitution. 

But the junta hand-picked most delegates, overwhelmingly made up of military
officers, and stage-managed the proceedings, ignoring even limited opposition
views. 

Though the National Convention has not reconvened since adjourning in March
1996, the military appears determined to draft a constitution that will ensure
a dominant role for itself in the country's future political structure. 

Speaking at the NLD celebration, party chairman Aung Shwe said a national
conference attended by all national ethnic groups is necessary to solve
current political, economic and social problems in the country. 

Elsewhere in Yangon, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the junta chairman, issued a
message urging further consolidation of national unity, saying it has enabled
the country to regain independence from foreign domination. 

The message was read at a flag-hoisting ceremony in Yangon's People's Square
by Maj. Gen. Khin Maung Than, chairman of the junta's Yangon division, and
broadcast live. 

''In the Union of Myanmar, the union spirit is being kept alive and dynamic
based on patriotism,'' the message said. 

''The national races are aware that internal and external destructive elements
are threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation, and
attempting to disrupt the national unity using their lackeys in the country,''
it said, in a thinly veiled attack on Suu Kyi and her party. 

The junta, after harshly suppressing massive pro-democracy demonstrations,
seized power in September 1988. It failed to honor the results of the 1990
election, which the NLD won by a landslide, and has since disqualified,
detained, arrested, or driven into exile many of the successful candidates.