Local Burmese will meet fellow expatriates from the United States and other countries in Fort Wayne this weekend to solidify unity among democratic forces and discuss strategy to fight against the long-standing Myanmar military regime.

The second-annual conference hosted by Fort Wayne Burmese will begin Saturday at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Maung Maung Soe, coordinator of the conference, said he hopes the conference will set a common ground for different organizations and people from as far away as Thailand, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada.

“Every Burmese national is responsible for acting against the military regime,” he said. “We want this conference to umbrella democratic forces and individuals and future democratic process.”

The country has been under military rule for the past 40 years. The military regime crushed a mass uprising in 1988 and negated the 1990 election in which the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory.

The first conference was organized to counter the “roadmap to democracy,” the current government’s version of a democratization plan issued in August 2003. The opposition called that plan a “sham.”

This year, the activists will re-evaluate their strategy under new circumstances involving a power shift within the military junta.

The Myanmar government issued a statement saying Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt was “permitted to retire for health reasons.” Khin Nyunt was taken into custody late Monday and charged with corruption, officials in neighboring Thailand said.

The sacking was seen as a move by Senior Gen. Than Shwe, chairman of the military junta, to consolidate control over the leadership and promote military hardliners.

“The new leadership is worse than Khin Nyunt, but we don’t believe any military leader,” said Kyaw Thet, another conference coordinator.

Other Burmese dissidents agree.

“It’s a power struggle among them. All of them were military generals and dictators,” said Win Khet, the chairman of National League for Democracy chapter in Thai-Myanmar border area. He is in Fort Wayne to attend the conference.

“We’ll continue what we have been doing,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, one of the military regime’s most powerful leaders, said Saturday the government would press ahead with a roadmap to democracy after the sacking of the premier.

Tin Htway, a Fort Wayne Burmese activist, is concerned the junta will water down the roadmap further.

“They may not change the backbone of the roadmap but may change the skeleton,” he said. “They may delay the process shown on the roadmap as late as possible.”

Maung Maung Soe said the Fort Wayne Burmese will continue challenging the international community to pressure the Myanmar regime.

Recently, Fort Wayne Burmese activists marched 180 miles from Albany, N.Y., to New York City, then protested with a hunger strike in front of U.N. headquarters for 13 days during the international organization’s general assembly.

“We have to keep struggling in every possible way,” Maung Maung Soe said.

The three-day conference will begin with a welcoming speech by Connell P. Nelson, IPFW director of International Services, at Neff Hall at 10 a.m. Saturday.