Burma's ruling junta last week reconvened its constitution-drafting convention, for what is being billed as one of the last sessions before a draft constitution is finalised.
Few people outside the governing inner circle, however, regard the 1,000-member assembly, which began 13 years ago and last met eight months ago, as little more than a charade to postpone meaningful political reform, rather than the beginning of a concrete roadmap to democracy, as the generals like to describe it.
Their second step, which should begin next year, will be a transition period during which the government will slowly be civilianised.
The main reason most analysts reject the regime's bluster is that the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won Burma's last general election in 1990 but has never been allowed to govern, is not only staying away, it is being condemned by the government. The information minister, Brigadeer General Kyaw Hsan, accused the NLD of "sticking steadfastly to confrontation".
The generals' determination to tighten their 42-year grip on power can be seen by how completely isolated the NLD leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, has become in recent months. "They're saying she's irrelevant and she's completely in isolation," said one foreign aid worker who regularly visits Burma.
Another minority party, the New Mon State party, has downgraded its presence to observer status at this convention session, to register its protest at the lack of meaningful progress.
That the generals will brook no opposition has been shown by the recent arrest of five leaders of the 1988 pro-democracy movement. U Htay K ywe, Ko Ko Gyi, Paw U Tun, Min Zeya and Pyone Cho are currently being questioned at a military guesthouse "to prevent instability of the state and to prevent terrorist acts from occurring here", Gen Kyaw Hsan said. In a rare show of defiance, the men's supporters have organised a petition to demand their release, which has allegedly attracted 120,000 names.
The regime's repression of ethnic minorities in eastern Burma is also continuing, far from the foreign journalists who had been allowed in for the start of the showcase convention. The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a group of non-governmental organisations working in the area, is soon to release a report claiming 82,000 people from 230 villages have been newly displaced in the last year as a result of armed conflict and human rights abuses by the Burmese army. The report estimates that there are about half a million internally displaced people in the border areas.
The one ray of hope for pro-democracy campaigners is that last month the US succeeded in getting Burma placed on the formal agenda of the UN security council. This was despite China's objections that US claims about the Burmese junta posing a threat to international peace and stability were "preposterous".
Rangoon has dismissed events at the UN as a US-orchestrated plot to topple the regime. Activists hope the security council will pass a binding resolution demanding Suu Kyi's immediate release and democratic change. They are likely to be disappointed. Meanwhile, for the majority of Burmese people, life will continue to be hard, if not more difficult.
