The international community viewed thisvolte facewith consternation and
disappointment and urged the SLORC to respect the democratic process. Yet the
generals did not budge. In 1991 , the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize to the NLD’s Aung San Suu Kyi in what the generals saw as another means to
pressure them into surrendering power.
Drafting a new constitution ( 1993 – 2008 )
On 23 June 1992 the SLORC convened a meeting with all political parties to work
out the process of drafting a new constitution. At the conclusion of that meeting, it
was announced that a National Convention, made up of delegates of all political
parties, would be established to draft the new constitution. Of the 702 delegates
appointed by SLORC, only eighty-six were from the NLD. The SLORC laid down
six objectives or principles that the Convention was required to follow:
1. preservation of the union;
2. preservation of national solidarity;
3. protection of sovereignty;
4. flourishing of a genuine multiparty system of government;
5. flourishing of justice, liberty and equality; and
6. participation of theTatmadaw(military) in future state political
leadership.^12The first session of the National Convention was held on 9 January 1993 and
adjourned the next day. Over the next three years, the National Convention was
convened and adjourned several times. In November 1995 , the NLD delegates
boycotted the National Convention, protesting the restrictions and predetermined
agenda. They were expelled from the Convention. After the Convention adjourned
on 30 March 1996 , it was not reconvened again for another eight years. In the
interim, the military continued its stranglehold on power. For the remainder of the
twentieth century, there was no significant constitutional development in Burma.
Meanwhile, the military junta did its best to persuade NLD members to either
quit politics or defect from the party.^13 With the weakening of the country’s most
popular political party, fissures within theTatmadawbegan to surface. Senior
General Saw Maung stepped down in September 1992 ostensibly for health reasons
and was replaced by Senior General Than Shwe, a hardline military leader who
was against democratisation in Burma. One of Than Shwe’s most powerful rivals
for leadership supremacy was General Khin Nyunt, a prote ́ge ́of General Ne Win
and the powerful and influential chief of intelligence who was regarded as a
(^12) Ibid., pp. 194 – 5.
(^13) See Tom Wingfield, ‘Myanmar: political stasis and a precarious economy’ ( 2000 )South-
east Asian Affairs 203 ,at 206 – 8.