The United Nations has offered the Burmese junta a political cocktail that could have given the embattled country a way out of its political deadlock.

The ingredients were simple: The UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, urged the junta to allow opposition groups a role in creating a draft constitution, allow independent monitors to observe a constitutional referendum and offer an inclusive, fair election representing all political views.

The junta declined.

In fact, the generals have already brewed up their own political cocktail and are offering it to the Burmese people in the constitutional referendum in May:

—A rigged draft constitution designed to enshrine the military as rulers in a “democratic” Burma.

—No guarantees to a fair and inclusive election in 2010 and the power to nullify the constitution at any time.

The Burmese people know the junta’s political cocktail is poison.
“It is impossible to review or rewrite the constitution which was drawn up with the participation of delegates from all walks of life,” Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan told Gambari on Friday in Rangoon, according to the state-run media.
What he failed to mention was that all the delegates were handpicked by the junta. Pro-democracy and ethnic opposition groups were not allowed to participate.

The military government also rebuffed the idea of independent poll observers as an infringement on “state sovereignty.”

The junta took the gloves off on Gambari’s last visit, telling him coldly that he was biased in favor of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years and is barred from running in the election.

Kyaw Hsan told Gambari that Burma has no political prisoners and that Suu Kyi was detained because she tried to disrupt the stability of the country. Actually, there are about 1,800 political prisoners in Burma.

The minister also criticized Gambari for his trips to other countries to seek support for political reform in Burma.

“Sadly, you went beyond your mandate,” he was told. “Hence, the majority of people are criticizing it as a biased act.”

Finally, in effect dismissing Gambari’s future usefullness, Kyaw Hsan said that if Gambari continued to encourage the junta to meet Western calls for reform, “We are concerned that your task of offering impartial advice may be undermined.”

Gambari departed Burma on Monday and will soon brief UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Whatever that briefing says, one thing is clear: the generals are in a state of denial.

In fact, Gambari’s mission is over diplomatically. The junta has stacked the political deck. Domestic events will have to play themselves out now—for good or bad. 

In reality, the UN has no further role to play in Burma. There’s no hope of reconciliation talks; no hope for broader political participation by the people. Sadly, there may be no hope of avoiding another civil uprising and more bloodshed and arrests.

You can see the sad state of events in Burma as the ending of an era going back to the 1988 uprising, in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) played such an important role. The NLD won the 1990 elections by a landslide, nullified by the generals. The NLD leadership has run out of energy and failed to come up with a new political vision.

So far, the NLD has failed to take a clear stand on the constitutional referendum and elections, perhaps partly because it doesn’t even know if it will be allowed to participate in the election.

In the 2007 uprising, the Burmese people, in effect, became the leaders of the political opposition, guided by a dedicated group of activist monks from across the country.

The Burmese people seem to sense that it’s up to them now. The tragedy is that if they express any critical views about the draft constitution, the elections or the regime, they may be imprisoned. Without any means to influence the junta, there are really only two options: political protests and courage.

The constitutional referendum in May could be a flash point. Will the people feel they have been allowed to cast their votes freely and fairly?

Any attempt by the junta or its affiliated political and civic groups to steal the referendum will spark a clash between the military and the people more dangerous than the 2007 uprising.

If the election is free and fair, the Burmese people will reject the junta’s poisonous political cocktail, knowing it will poison their national pride and be a death sentence for Burma’s future generations.

The generals are clearly living in self-denial, drunk on their own power, in total denial of even the most basic principles of fairness and democracy.

But like all drunks, there will come a day—perhaps in May—when they may be awakened by the Burmese people and forced to face reality.