Myanmar is urged to embrace democracy

YANGON, Myanmar — Critics and friends of military-ruled Myanmar on Wednesday urged the country's new prime minister to make good on government promises to move toward democracy, a day after the junta shuffled a more moderate leader out of power.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan led calls for reform and reiterated his demand for the release of detained pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Washington expressed concern that events in the country formerly called Burma were moving in the wrong direction.

Malaysia and Thailand, both of which have cordial relations with the junta, expressed hope Wednesday that Myanmar's stated plans for a return to democracy would stay on track.

Ordinary citizens willing to speak about the events said they were caught by surprise but believed the ruling junta's supreme chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, had consolidated his power.

"We are not nearer to democracy than before, but we are further off from it now," said a 40-year old university tutor, who like most people here insisted that he not be named. "There is a sense of uncertainty, and prospects for change which were dim in the past are now out of sight."

In a surprise move, the military government of this isolated and impoverished Southeast Asian nation said Tuesday it was replacing the pragmatic prime minister Gen. Khin Nyunt with the more hardline Lt. Gen. Soe Win.

A spokesman for Annan said he wants Myanmar authorities "to remain committed to the process of national reconciliation and democratization" through dialogue with Suu Kyi's political party and ethnic minority groups.

Annan reiterated his call for the immediate release of Suu Kyi, who was detained after a bloody attack on her and her followers by government supporters in May last year.

Washington echoed that call, demanding an immediate and unconditional release of Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.

"The events that we're watching don't point in the direction of allowing freedom of exercise of political and human rights," U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters on Tuesday. "We continue to call on Burma to engage in meaningful dialogue leading to genuine national reconciliation."

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962.

The country has been in a political deadlock since Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but was prevented by the military from taking power.