In August last year, General Khin Nyunt, appointed Prime Minister, announced a 7-point plan for Burma. Known as a 'road-map' to democracy, its most immediate step was the re-convening of the National Convention with the aim of drafting a new Constitution.

While a glimmer of hope thus appears for a different Burma, people of the present still face conditions of deteriorating human rights. This is a matter that crosses political borders; it is inscribed most visibly in the bodies and minds of fleeing refugees who continue to wait desperately for justice and democracy in Malaysia, Thailand, and surrounding countries.

"The very day that we have peace, the very hour" one of them said to me recently, "I will go home. But not now; there is no hope for me there."

Indeed, life isn't easy for the asylum seekers who have fled their homes. Both Thailand and Malaysia do not have legal provisions for people in refugees circumstances.

Thus, many minority groups who have fled the excesses of the junta regime tend to be caught between two difficult alternatives face persecution, beatings and arrests in Burma, or eke out an unprotected existence in neighbouring countries as 'illegals'.

Their hope is that justice and democracy is restored in their homelands. What chance is there for this in the near future? Much depends on how the process of drafting the Constitution is carried out.

Political prisoners

In a report released today entitled 'Myanmar: The Administration of Justice Grave and Abiding Concerns', Amnesty International expresses that this process may be seriously hindered from proceeding in a free and open manner.

(The Burmese military junta has renamed the country Myanmar, but this was rejected by its opponents who argued that the name change was made by an illegitimate government which seized power after losing the 1990 general elections.)

Through interviews conducted with political prisoners, key Ministers under the present government, as well as police and prison officials, Amnesty establishes that arrests and surveillance of members of opposition parties continue to take place.

To date, they estimate that there are around 1,300 1,400 political prisoners in Burma, including members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and report that these number continue to rise. These are voices that can contribute legitimately to the process of Constitution-making, but are unlikely to do so.

Forced labour

Amnesty's report describes the various structural ways in which justice has been compromised. Arbitrary arrests, lengthy pre-trial procedures, denial of access to lawyers, prolonged interrogation accompanied by torture and ill-treatment, and trials falling short of international fair trial standards, are those that impinge directly on the lives of political prisoners.

In addition, ongoing concerns throughout Burma include forced labour of civilians by the military, forcible relocations of members of minority groups, extrajudicial killings, and torture of civilians.

Meanwhile, many refugees wait endlessly for a time of justice. Since the regime began dictating the terms of citizenship in Burma, grandchildren have been borne to some of those awaiting return to their homes.

They are children of uncertainty, of restricted lives, of silence and fear. Living in Southeast Asia, they will ever remain outside of protection of States, until a democratic Burma transforms from chimera to reality.

Hannah Young is the refugee coordinator at Amnesty International Malaysia.