Burmese opposition groups say the junta’s announcement on Thursday of a timetable for a final schedule for drafting a new constitution will not bring a solution to the country’s political problems.

Foreign minister Nyan Win told the Asean regional security forum in Kuala Lumpur that Burma would resume a constitution-drafting convention before Asean’s summit in December. But he declined to say whether opposition leader Aung  San Suu Kyi would be allowed to take part.
A spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy, Nyan Win, (no relationship to foreign minister) was skeptical. “We believe the only convention which will benefit the country is one that includes all sections of the community,” he said.

The convention is part of the junta’s seven-step road map to democracy. However, the convention has come under international criticism for holding sessions without the participation of the NLD, which has boycotted the meetings while Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.

During the last session of the assembly debating the constitution, adjourned last January, the government claimed that 1,074 out of 1,080 invited delegates from all walks of life participated in the event.

“Under the present circumstances the national convention has not fulfilled the desire of ethnic groups,” Dr Manam Tu Ja, leader a convention delegation from the Kachin Independence Organization, an ethnic ceasefire group told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “I think this would not be a genuine union of Burma and we cannot reach a genuine democracy.”

Fu Cin Sian Thang, chairman of the Zomi National Congress in Rangoon, said completion of the national convention was entirely dependent on the regime. He did not see a useful outcome from resuming the convention. “Looking at the road map, we do not see it would be beneficial to the country or really head toward democracy, but would maintain the military’s power in  future government,” said Fu Cin Sian Thang.

The constitutional draft has already finalized most sections, including a chapter on levels of autonomy among states and divisions.

Manam Tu Ja, also a vice chairman of the KIO, he said he did not believe the convention result would be as his group wished. “To build a genuine union of Burma or to restore a long-term peace there must be full democratic rights, equality and fairness, and states must enjoy self-determination,” he said.

UN Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari said in May that progress on the constitutional convention should include the opposition NLD.