AP
Posted: 2007-12-04 02:15:53
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar’s military government has granted amnesties to 8,585 prisoners as a gesture to the United Nations and to celebrate progress on its long-awaited constitution, state media said Tuesday.
It was unclear, however, if any of the released prisoners were among those detained when the junta cracked down on anti-government protests in September, sparking global outrage and a series of visits by U.N. officials.
Among those released were a dozen political prisoners, none of whom was detained in the recent protests, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.
The junta traditionally frees prisoners on holidays such as Independence Day in October and to mark other occasions.
The amnesties were handed out to show “cooperation with the United Nations and the international community” and to hail progress in preparing a constitution, the Myanma Ahlin newspaper reported.
It said 33 Thai nationals were among those released but did not give any other details. Most government amnesties free people convicted of common crimes.
On Monday, a constitution drafting committee began writing a new charter based on guidelines laid out by a national convention which began in 1993 and ended in August.
Drafting a constitution is part of the junta’s proclaimed seven-step “roadmap to democracy,” which critics call a sham designed to keep the military in power.
Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the current junta took power and suspended a 1974 charter.
The junta has ruled out any role for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in drafting the new constitution. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won general elections in 1990, but the military refused to allow it to take power.
“No assistance or advice from other persons is required” in drafting the constitution, Information Minister Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan told reporters Monday, apparently ruling out a push by the United Nations to open the process up.
The U.N. has urged the government to make political reforms after pro-democracy demonstrations in September were violently suppressed, with at least 15 people killed and thousands detained. Myanmar’s police chief said Monday that 80 of those people remain in detention.