Constitution talks resume in Yangon amid blasts

An explosion wounded two people in Myanmar’s capital on Monday as the military junta resumed constitutional talks dismissed by critics ...

An explosion wounded two people in Myanmar’s capital on Monday as the military junta resumed constitutional talks dismissed by critics as a smokescreen to further entrench more than four decades of Army rule.

The cause of the blast inside a building in Yangon was not clear, but the capital has been under tight security since three bomb attacks killed 11 people in May. ‘‘It could be a gas explosion but we are still investigating,’’ the police said.

Earlier on Monday, the military government accused ‘‘destructive elements’’ of seeking to disrupt its constitution-drafting National Convention at a specially-built compound 40 km from Yangon.

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With Opposition Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and her National League for Democracy (NLD) staying away, critics say the convention is a ploy by the generals who overruled Suu Kyi’s 1990 election victory.

The government insists it is determined to implement its road map to democracy announced in 2003 but has set no timetable. “We are in the middle of implementing the first phase of the seven-step plan to transition to a genuine, disciplined democracy,” Lieutenant-General Thein Sein said in reopening the convention.

“We have to follow these steps without fail. There is no other way,” said Thein Sein, chairman of the convention’s convening committee and the Junta’s fourth ranked general.

The military, which has ruled the former Burma in various guises since 1962, has come under fire from Western governments and human rights groups for the slow pace of democratic reforms. At the behest of the US, the UN Security Council has agreed to discuss for the first time the situation in the country.

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The country’s biggest rebel group, the Karen National Union, has never joined the talks.

Suu Kyi’s NLD, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the Army, is boycotting the convention while the Nobel Peace laureate remains under house arrest.

— Reuters

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