The reasons to oppose the Junta’s constitution draft (Part 1)

Original by Ko Htike, Translated by Myint Yee

Brief History of 104 Amendments

As of section (13/92), the National Constitution Committee was created in 1992, October 2nd.

The 6 objectives of the constitutions were

1) The unity of the state
2) The unity of tribes in the state
3) The legislative power of the state
4) To attain the multi-party democracy system
5) To promote the general welfare, freedom and justice
6) To recognize the role of army in the future policies of the nation

Below are the reasons why this constitution is against democracy reform process.
For the constitution, eight groups were created, and five in a group take turns to moderate the sections. The groups are;

1) The selected assembly
2) Tribal Representatives
3) Agricultural Group
4) Labor Unions
5) Well-educated Representatives
6) Government Employee Group
7) Representatives from political parties
8) Other Invited Parties

Amongst these eight groups, only the selected assembly and Political Parties Representatives were elected by people. Therefore, the other six groups were chosen undemocratically.

The representatives from the other six groups were handpicked by Military Government, not by Burmese people. Therefore, their voices do not represent Burmese people.

Some representatives in those groups are linked to Junta. Through them, the constitution draft involves the elements that are in favor of Junta’s preferences. However, the proposals from people elected groups are different from them and swayed away from six objectives listed above.

Picking on the objectives, the commissioner and moderators in charge have right to reject the proposed elements. Since the structure of drafting committee is undemocratic, you can see that the roles of people selected groups are not effective.

When most of the proposals from NLD and tribal representatives were rejected and Pro-Junta group’s [...] proposals were approved into constitution, NLD party left the meeting. The tribal representatives remained as listening bodies.

Soon after NLD left the meeting, Junta’s Solidarity and Development Association staged pro-constitution draft rally and made 104 Amendments official themselves. However, the constitution meeting was stopped in 1994.

To be continued…
P.S.
This 104 amendments were distributed by Minister of Media Kyaw San and the critiques are written by Attorney General U Aung Toe. We are just distributing what is out there. The parts in black are their constitution draft, organized by Kyaw San and the parts in red are critiques from Attorney General U Aung Toe.