Regime urged to delay referendum
Updated
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has requested talks with senior Burma general Than Shwe and suggested that it may be prudent for the junta to postpone a referendum on a military-drafted constitution in order to focus on the emergency response to the devastation.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Dr Monique Skidmore, Burma specialist at the Australian National University's Centre for Cross-Cultural Research
SKIDMORE: That is really the only sensible, moral and humane thing to be doing, but this is not a regime known for its sensible, moral response to its population's needs.
LAM: Why do you think it's in such a hurry, why not postpone the entire referendum?
SKIDMORE: I think because its already done some pre-balloting already, so there's already been voting in some areas of the country. There's been a lot of pre-printed ballot papers with the 'yes' vote already on them handily, so people can just drop their yes vote, if you are a public servant into the box. So they are desperate to engineer this yes vote and the only reason to postpone it would be if you were really interested in creating a free and fair vote. That's never been the intention. So in some ways it does not really matter that not all the population will be able to vote.
LAM: Indeed, given the chaos and confusion, one would think that it might not be a very effective referendum. Will many people vote yes do you think, even though the ballot papers have already been marked?
SKIDMORE: People who, the military will be watching them vote. There will be people who. There are even reports now that getting aid from the military during this because of the cyclone is contingent on you voting yes. So there will be people because of fear and repression who will vote yes. They were even be a tiny number of people who vote yes because they do think a constitution is a good way forward. But most people will of course try not to vote yes.
LAM: And Dr Skidmore, what is the referendum? Just run through what the military is trying to achieve here?
SKIDMORE: This Constitution it will allow a significant number of seats in the parliament to always be allocated to the military and the military office will get to pick from amongst themselves the key military posts and at any time they see a natural disaster or a demonstration of what they might call a security crisis, they can legitimately declare marshall law and take over the country again. So it's going to allow them to do what we see, for example, happening regularly in Thailand, with the military taking over and but in Thailand you have to suspend the constitution every time that happens. But this is a constitution which will enshrine the right of the military to be forever engaged in Burmese politics.
LAM: So in a way, it does give the junta carte blanch to do whatever it wishes?
SKIDMORE: That's right, it's just a further consolidation of their rule.
LAM: And given the extent of the cyclone damage, and the amount of grieving going on in Burma, do you think people might be in a mood to turn up?
SKIDMORE: Oh of course not and in fact most voting was going to happen in schools and there are more than 3,000 schools wiped out just in the Irrawaddy area. So it's not going to be physically possible to hold this referendum even in three months time in these areas.
