Bangkok Post, October 20
"The power struggle within Burma's military appears to have come to a head with the removal of Khin Nyunt as the country's prime minister and military intelligence chief ... For months now, [the junta leader] General Than Shwe has been systematically reducing Khin Nyunt's power ...
"Burma's military leaders have no intention of handing power to a civilian government in the near future. Gen Than Shwe has made no secret of his intention to remain in control for at least another decade and will continue to remove any rivals within the army he fears may threaten to his ambition."
Irrawaddy Online
Editorial, Thailand, October 20
"In a government with a predilection for making decisions based on advice from numerologists and fortune-tellers, it would come as no surprise that up until this week there wasn't an auspicious enough date to dump him. So then why make him prime minister and then undermine his office? There is no coherent answer, but this is not a coherent regime ...
"[The deputy senior general] Maung Aye and Gen Than Shwe [are] the last men standing from the junta that took power in 1988. They will have to maintain control as long as they can or they risk a fate similar to that which befell their erstwhile colleagues and former superiors."
Nation
Editorial, Thailand, October 20
"The sacking ... has sent an eerie chill through the troubled nation - and region ... Thailand's connection with Burma over the last three years has been largely defined by [Thai] Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's 'personal diplomacy', which basically meant having faith in Khin Nyunt's ability to secure whatever arrangements were made ... Now that Khin Nyunt is out of the picture, the future of Thai-Burmese relations is likely to come under intense pressure."
Yomiuri Shimbun
Editorial, Japan, October 21
"No one wants Khin Nyunt's downfall to destabilise his nation and its neighbours. While in office, Khin Nyunt put together a 'road map to democracy' while also convening a national assembly to draft a constitution ... The ruling junta should, at least, keep the democratic process in place. If it chose to suspend the national assembly, the junta could arouse dissatisfaction among the Burmese public. Doing so would also undermine Burma's relations with other countries in the region."
Financial Times
Editorial, October 21
"[The] 'roadmap to democracy' [was] an inadequate plan but one that Asian governments could wave around to show that their 'constructive engagement' with Rangoon was finally bearing fruit. Those claims ... now look absurd ...
"What is surprising is that Asian governments ever advertised their policy of ignoring the wishes of the Burmese people and cosying up to a group of merciless, greedy and economically illiterate generals as a viable strategy for determining Burma's future. Association of South-East Asian Nations countries, and China, must now face the consequences of their failure."
Australian
Editorial, October 21
"After 42 years of military dictatorship, Burma is a basket case ... International monitoring groups rank Burma at the bottom of the civil liberties scale, with Cuba and North Korea. The closed economy is a shambles, and the World Health Authority ranks Burma's health system at 190 out of 191 nations ...
"Tuesday's lurch to the right in Rangoon suggests that [US and British] sanctions are having little or no effect ... Meanwhile, Australia's policy of diplomatic fence-sitting - no sanctions, but no active engagement via aid and trade programmes either - has achieved nothing. It's time for new thinking on Burma."
