But in Myanmar’s case, the plan and the process are extremely problematic.

According to the military government’s announcement, the junta will put together a new draft Constitution and hold a national referendum in May. A multiparty general election will be held two years after national acceptance of the Constitution.

The junta announced 15 years ago that it will switch to civilian rule. It has finally revealed a specific roadmap.

Last year, the military government was heavily criticized for its violent crackdown on pro-democracy Buddhist monks. The latest announcement aims to fend off this strong international pressure.

But no matter what kind of civilian transition the military junta comes up with, any plan is meaningless as long as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is kept under house arrest and her National League for Democracy (NLD) is prevented from political activities.

In the previous general election held in 1990, opposition parties were allowed to participate, but the junta had already placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest the year before. When the NLD nevertheless won a landslide victory, the junta voided the election results altogether.

There is no knowing what kind of elections will take place in 2010, but Foreign Minister Nyan Win has already announced that Aung San Suu Kyi would be barred from running because her husband is a foreigner.

In addition, the ruling People’s Assembly went ahead with the drafting of the Constitution without the involvement of the NLD or ethnic minority representatives. As a result, the Constitution was drafted in a way that blatantly protects the powers of the military: a quarter of the parliamentary seats will be filled by the military; the president will be required to be “well-versed in military affairs.”

If the junta is actually serious about democracy, it should promptly release Aung San Suu Kyi well before the May national referendum and create an environment in which opposition groups can operate freely. Without those changes, the referendum will inevitably be derided as a “mobilized” referendum with the military forcing people to vote in its favor.

There is no way that it will be recognized as a democratization process.

The foreign ministers’ meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

(ASEAN) raised doubts about Myanmar’s civilian transition process.

The international society, including Japan and the United Nations, needs to step up its involvement.

Myanmar will never be stable if there is no dialogue with opposition groups, and international assistance necessary for economic development will never come. The Japanese government should send a senior official to Myanmar to try to convince the junta of this logic.

Moreover, we hope the Japanese government continues its efforts to bring about a full investigation and the truth about the death last year of journalist Kenji Nagai, who was shot while covering the pro-democracy protests.

In Myanmar, ethnic minorities account for as much as one-third of the country’s population. Recently, the leader of an ethnic group visited Japan to ask Diet members for help so that international election monitors would be on hand for the national referendum. This is one request that must be honored.