After re-detaining Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader, under “protective custody” on May 30, 2003, a year after her release on May 6 2002, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) –the ruling military Junta in Myanmar had evolved a strategy to ward off international pressure questioning their commitment to the process of democratic transition. The political maneuver was a cosmetic jugglery in which Senior General Than Shwe ‘stepped down’ in July and made way for General Khin Nyunt to assume the premiership. The move, besides shielding the Senior General from the heat of international pressures and internal mistrust that he had roused, was calculated to provide greater acceptability to the subsequent August road map towards democracy, containing proposals to reconvene the National Constitutional Convention (NCC). The NCC had earlier failed when the main Opposition, the National League for Democracy (NLD), walked out in December 1995 in protest against the principles and guidelines laid out by the junta. These guidelines were designed to ensure a major governing role for the military in the draft constitution.

That the Junta in Myanmar is determined to stick to power is a given. Any meaningful transition to democratic could also jeopardize the future prominence of the military. What then is its purpose in announcing the road map? And what circumstances occasioned such a reversal to the previous situationâ€â€