"Isn't it amazing?" Burmese Gen Than Shwe marveled to UN secretary general Ban Ki Mon. "Over 92 percent of voters ratified our new constitution." "What's really amazing," Ban replied, "is I keep meeting the eight percent who rejected it."

That joke distills "Burma's Referendum of the Absurd." This country hasn't had a constitution since the tatmadaw (military) grabbed power four decades back. But lack of constitutional moorings always rankled deeply.

Ignoring 2.5 million cyclone victims, the junta rammed through the referendum. A grab for a fig leaf of legitimacy overrode the task of saving its starving people.

All dictatorships misread their "popularity." Recall Marcos' "citizens assemblies." The generals were also deluded. The junta allowed 1990 elections - and was rocked on its heels. Voters voted in, by a landslide, the opposition National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Dictators, however, are predictable. The junta detained Ms Suu Kyi. It scrapped election results. How? By rewriting the rules. Their ballots, the junta told stunned voters, were not for parliament after all. It was for a constitution-writing national convention - which didn't bother to assemble until three years later.

To placate international critics, the junta adopted, then systematically ignored, a "Seven Step Road Map to Democracy". In September 2007, the convention announced a draft charter - that's never been seen by most Burmese.

Copies were priced out of reach Referendum Law 1/2006 slapped stiff jail sentences for "disrupting the vote." Except for "Light of Myanmmar" and other mouthpieces, no journalist could report the process. The foreign press was banned and Internet closed down. The brutal crackdown on the "Saffron Revolution" followed.

The constitution gives the tatmadaw a quarter of parliament's seats. They've been granted immunity from prosecution for past crimes. Candidates for president with foreign spouses or children (Suu Kyi's husband was the Oxford don Michael Aris) are barred. Buddhist monks are disenfranchised.

Conduct of Burma's "referendum" would give Maguindanoa's Governor Andal Ampatuan a run for the money. Villagers were told by local military: only a "tick" (Yes) was acceptable. Employees had to fill ballots in front of bosses. And officers voted for troops. "OK. We'll all vote now," the old joke said. "Those in favor can say "aye." And those against can resign."

The "92% landslide vote" "washed away," the mandate of the opposition, cackled the "Light of Myanmmar," adding: "If they want the mandate of the people, in the new nation with the new system, they should stand for elections in accordance with rules" - patently stacked in favor of the generals. "Surreal" snorted UN envoy Paulo Pinheiro.

"But in all its absurdity, the referendum is intended to produce exactly what the (junta) promised all along - "a leading role for the military," wrote New Statesman's David Scott Mathieson. " We must not take our eyes off a process tailor-made to prolong military rule, in all its cruelty, corruption, ineptitude and disdain, for some of the longest suffering people in the world."

Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Vaclav Havel who became president of the Czech Republic after leading its "Velvet Rveolution" and former Germany president Richard von Weizsacker have protested.

In a joint statement, they bluntly said: "All current and former political prisoners, about 500,000 Buddhist monks, and more than twice as many members of ethnic minority groups living close to the borders were banned from the vote."

"Aung San Suu Kyi, who has never been prosecuted and still remains under house arrest, is barred from standing in the 2010 general elections." The pretext is: her deceased husband was British. "Is the world really willing to accept such an absurdity?

"To stop today's greatest atrocity" - the regime's obstruction of foreign aid to cyclone victims - the UN should press for free flow of aid, they said. "EU should adopt banking sanctions that target the regime and its cronies…Neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should stop looking the other way…"

Burma ironically chairs the Asean committee on emergency response and natural disasters. "But with its history of cozy diplomacy and non-interference, Asean provides Burmese generals with a diplomatic comfort zone," the Guardian noted. Held just after the brutal crackdown on the "Saffron Revolution" the Asean Summit let Burma, "get away with a killing spree with no more than a slap on the wrist." "Trading…lines both pockets of Burmese generals and (Asean) business tycoons.

Asean is now linked with UN to get aid flowing. Thus "Asean's credibility is on the line," says political analyst and Burmese academic U Naing Oo, based in Chiangmai, Saving lives in Burma may turn out to be inseparable from saving Asean reputation on the 40th anniversary of it's founding..

"If Burma sinks, then the much-touted Asean community of 2015 and the cause of south-east Asian integration may well sink with it," he adds. It will also drown with a sham constitution as a millstone.

(E-mail: juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com)