AP Interview: Myanmar vote needs international observers, says UN investigator

April 14, 2008 (IHT)- BRUSSELS, Belgium: Myanmar's planned referendum on a new constitution will be reduced to a mere "ritual" unless international observers are allowed to monitor the vote, a U.N. human rights investigator said Monday.

The military regime in Myanmar will need to allow the opposition to organize and allow more free speech rights for the May 10 referendum to have any credibility, said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

"How can you have a referendum without any of the basic freedoms?" he asked in an interview. "It would be important to have international observers to validate the referendum, because if not it would be just a ritual without real content."

Opponents of Myanmar's junta say the new constitution is designed to perpetuate military rule.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party has also called for international observers and says the referendum "cannot be free and fair" because the rules are stacked against the opposition.

Pinheiro said he had received reports of supporters of a "no" vote in the referendum being detained.

"How can you believe in this referendum?" Pinheiro told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a visit to the European Parliament. "I haven't seen any sign of liberalization," he complained.

Junta officials rejected the idea of international observers when it was proposed to them by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari in a meeting last month. State media said it was decided there was no precedent for it and it infringed on Myanmar's sovereignty.

Pinheiro said there was little sign the regime would lift its ban on him visiting the country before he steps down at the end of this month after seven years as the U.N. human rights investigator. "Hope, always I try to have, but I'm not expecting that the government will give me a visa in the next two weeks."

The Myanmar authorities have refused to allow Pinheiro back into the country since November following his criticism of the government's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Suu Kyi's NLD has urged voters to reject the proposed constitution because it was drafted under the junta's direct control, without any input from the country's pro-democracy movement. The draft constitution will be adopted if more than half of eligible voters approve it in the referendum.

The constitutional referendum is supposed to be followed by a general election in 2010, but the charter allows the military to keep wide powers and effectively prevent Suu Kyi from holding public office.

Her party won the last general elections in 1990, but the military refused to hand over power, instead stepping up its repression of dissidents. Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest, has been in detention without trial for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

The junta has resisted international pressure to make democratic reforms and quashed pro-democracy protests last September. The U.N. estimates at least 31 people were killed in the crackdown and thousands more were detained.