GMA URGED TO DENOUNCE REFERENDUM ON BURMA'S CONSTITUTION

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to denounce the "sham referendum" on the new Constitution of Burma on May 10 that will enable the ruling military junta to keep itself in power.

Pimentel, vice chairman of the Southeast Asian Parliamentarians Caucus on Myanmar said the referendum is a farce because Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, and other opposition leaders are not allowed to participate in the political exercise.

He said the ban on free speech remains in force, which further indicates the junta's intention to manipulate the referendum.

"I urge President Arroyo to denounce the sham referendum on the new Burmese Constitution which is being undertaken by the ruling junta to perpetuate its military rule," Pimentel said.

As a leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Mrs. Arroyo has been very vocal in persuading the military rulers of Myanmar to fulfill their commitment to restore democracy, to free Aung San Suu Kyi and to hold free elections.

Pimentel said the recent acts of oppression committed by the ruling junta against the Burmese people were reported by Burmese members of parliament Teddy Buri and Bo Hla Tint before the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) during its 118th assembly in Cape Town, Africa on April 13-18.

"They told us of the need for the international community to speak out against the farcical referendum that the ruling junta is holding on May 10 to ratify a new Constitution of Burma," said Pimentel, a member of the five-man CHRP representing the ASEAN +3.

In response, he said the CHRP denounced the draft Constitution by the ruling junta as farcical and asked for the release of all opposition leaders and activists from detention.

The atrocities being perpetrated by the ruling military junta attracted global attention when Buddhist monks led street protests in September last year.

Earlier, Pimentel had urged the ASEAN to impose sanctions against Burma including expulsion from the organization, for reneging on its commitment to take concrete steps to bring back democracy and to stop trampling upon human rights of the Burmese people.