“Everything from A to Z will be laid down as they [the junta] draft it,” said Win Naing. He charged that the regime had already drafted the constitution before the Convention.  

“No one can change it, even ceasefire groups,” he said.

Seventeen ceasefire groups attended the Convention when it resumed in 2004, saying they would try to change it within. According to the groups’ participants, they haven’t yet had much opportunity to participate actively in discussions.

One ethnic leader, Fu Cin Sian Thang said on the phone: “We didn’t attend because we knew this would happen.”  Fu Cin Sian Thang is a chairman of the Zomi National Congress, based in Rangoon.

A political analyst in exile, Aung Naing Oo, agreed with Win Naing’s conviction that the junta will win by drafting its own constitution at the Convention. But he added: “It will be winner’s curse.”

“How long can it last?” Aung Naing Oo asked. “Because it will be a constitution drawn up by only one side.” He named as an example the 1974 constitution drawn up by late dictator Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party.