Suu Kyi's NLD to boycott Myanmar convention

The National League for Democracy (NLD) said in a statement it would be not be in the country's interest if it attended the forum, which the junta has billed as the first part of its "roadmap to democracy."

"The NLD has come to the conclusion that it will not benefit the nation by participating in the national convention, and so we have made the decision not to attend," party chairman Aung Shwe said, reading a prepared statement.

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Analysts have warned that the convention which begins Monday would lose all credibility if the NLD, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 which was never recognised by the junta, did not attend.

Aung Shwe said the decision to skip the forum hinged on the military junta's refusal to release Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and its failure to adopt reforms to the convention format recently proposed by the NLD.

"On the matter of releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and (detained vice chairman) Tin Oo, and the reopening of the (NLD) offices, they said they had no plans to do so at the moment," Aung Shwe said.

Party secretary U Lwin admitted the decision was a near U-turn from late last month, when the NLD was almost certain of attending as it appeared the authorities would react favourably to the party's proposals, which included a call for free and open discussions.

As weeks passed, there was no response from authorities on the proposals.

"The (waiting) time is up, and since we did not get a positive response to our suggestions we made our decision not to attend," U Lwin told a packed briefing at the NLD's Yangon headquarters.

The NLD boycott threatens to trigger a mass walkout, with several ethnic groups and small political parties believed to be making their attendance conditional on the NLD's participation.

"We will not attend also," said chairman Khun Tun Oo of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the second largest winning party in the 1990 elections and one of the most prominent opposition groupings.