German workshop with ‘junta stooges’ draws flak

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 00:58 Khaing Kyaw Mya

New Delhi (Mizzima) - A workshop on Burma in the run-up to this year’s general elections to be held by a German educational fund in Berlin on September 17 is drawing flak from Burmese activists.

The seminar titled “Burma/Myanmar before the parliamentary elections - Perspectives from inside the country” organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and slated for September 17 in Berlin, will discuss the elections on November 7, the military-ruled country’s electoral laws and whether elections will provide an opportunity for democratic change in the country.

But Burmese activists in exile in Germany have condemned the workshop’s focus as “propaganda” and a legitimisation of “sham elections” and plan to protest against it.

The workshop at the foundation’s headquarters will be attended by the NGO’s own experts, delegates from Germany, Dr. Khin Zaw Win, civil society facilitator, International Development Enterprises, Burma; and Dr. Nay Win Maung, co-founder and secretary general of civil society group Myanmar Egress, which publishes Living Colour magazine and the The Voice Weekly from Burma.

The Burmese delegates would “enlighten” their German colleagues and participants in the development of Burma following the elections, a foundation official said.

The workshop would raise questions about happenings in the legislative process so far and how the experts would judge the electoral laws, the outcome of the election and whether it would propel the country into democratic change, he added.

Dr. Khin Zaw Win will give a talk on “Burma/Myanmar in the run-up to the elections: Party politics and the role of the military and opposition groups in the preparatory phase”, while Dr. Nay Win Maung will deliver “Boycott versus engagement: The elections as opportunity for democratic change”.

“It’s a programme focusing on the elections in Burma after two decades,” the programme officer, a Mr. Konstanten (surname given only), said. “People in Germany are not familiar with developments in Burma so the discussions will help familiarise the participants. The workshop will continue for two hours.”

A total of 42 political parties have registered and received approval from the Burmese junta’s electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission (UEC), to contest in this year’s elections. They are the first polls since pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept to victory in 1990, only for the results to be ignored by the junta for decades and finally annulled this year.

Critics of the Burmese junta have however dubbed the election a sham, citing the electoral laws that favour the military and its crony parties and effectively deny the NLD and many opposition groups any part.
The workshop has drawn the ire of activists at Burma Bureau Germany, which has condemned the event. They and their German supporters and other Burmese in exile are going to demonstrate against it because they allege that the two delegates are stooges of the military junta.

“We don’t expect any reforms from the election. The two [speakers] are spokesmen of the military leaders. They will never talk about the people’s wishes,” Burma Bureau Germany leader Sonny Aung Than Oo said.

“They will carry out propaganda on the election saying the election is genuine and necessary for the people though it is based on the controversial 2008 constitution,” he said. “The constitution is designed to entrench military rule, so we do not support it.”

Mizzima was unable to reach Nay Win Maung or Khin Zaw Win for comment.