Myanmar plans final constitution meeting in July
Reuters / June 06, 2007

Military-ruled Myanmar will reconvene its National Convention for the last time next month to finish drafting a new constitution.

Military-ruled Myanmar will reconvene its National Convention for the last time next month to finish drafting a new constitution, official media reported on Tuesday.

"The National Convention will resume on July 18 and it will be the last session," convening committee chairman Lieutenant General Thein Sein said in a report by state-owned MRTV television.

Some 1,000 delegates from across the former Burma, most of them handpicked by the military government, will return for the final session at a specially-built camp outside of Yangon.

The junta has been holding the convention to write a new constitution since 2003 as part of a seven-stage "roadmap to democracy" laid out by former prime minister Khin Nyunt, who was ousted in October 2004.

Western governments and other critics say it is nothing but a smokescreen to preserve the generals' grip on power, especially while opposition figures such as Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi remain under house arrest.

The military last month extended its detention of Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) which is boycotting the convention, for another year.