Myanmar's junta on Saturday warned the opposition to cooperate with the newly elected government. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from a seven-year house detention a week after the November 7 elections, has said she favours dialogue with the military rulers, and has voiced qualified support for sanctions against the regime.
But in a newspaper editorial, the administration said that "any effort to achieve national reconsolidation through non-violent, violent, indirect and direct approaches designed to control the ruling government will never come to fruition."
"Those in favour of true democracy have to give advice and make suggestions with a positive attitude, (and) regard the government elected in 2010 elections as a democracy ally," the state-run New Light of Myanmar said. November's elections were widely criticised for excluding Nobel laureate Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD). The pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won 77 per cent of the contested seats in a three-chamber parliament.
Previous efforts to topple the junta have been unsuccessful, the editorial noted, such as the ethnic insurgencies active since 1948, pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988, the NLD's 20-year struggle, and the international sanctions. The military crushed the 1988 uprising, leaving an estimated 3,000 dead.
The NLD won a general election in 1990 by a landslide but was blocked from power by the military, which has ruled the country under dictatorships since 1962. Critics said the newly elected government is simply a change in wardrobe for the generals. The USDP is packed with former and current military men. According to the 2008 constitution, 25 per cent of the seats in parliament are appointed by the military, effectively giving it the power to veto legislation.
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