The generals are doing everything possible through the Constitution to prolong their hold on power and to protect them from the consequences of human rights violations and war crimes.
If the Burmese military believes that it deserves the privilege to govern, then it should be brave enough to compete with politicians and political parties within an open and fair parliamentary framework.
Burma's major ethnic cease-fire groups will not accept the junta’s border guard force plan and are reluctant to contest the election because the Constitution is rigged against them.
The national vision of the Burmese generals in the seventh and final step of their political “road map” to democracy is to build a modern, developed and democratic nation.
The generals are doing everything possible through the Constitution to prolong their hold on power and to protect them from the consequences of human rights violations and war crimes.
Ahead of the 2010 election, the Burmese people must ask whether the role of “union level” civil society groups and the role of elected members of parliament will be competing or complementary in the new Constitution.
"Once her [Aung San Suu Kyi's] sentence expires in November, and that notion is not disputed, it is our understanding that she will have served her sentence." —Nyan Win, the foreign minister of Burma