Senior figures from the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, have held a press conference in Yangon. They said that plans to amend the constitution risk “breaching constitutional rules” and warned against amendments that would “harm the essence” of the controversial charter. “We hereby would like to repeat again that we are not objecting to constitutional reforms, but we object to their action [of forming a committee] which is against constitutional rules and parliament by-laws,” Major General Tun Tun Nyi was quoted as saying by The Irrawaddy. He went on to say that the National League for Democracy (NLD) has already breached the constitution by creating the role of State Counsellor for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a position similar to Prime Minister. The current constitution was put to a referendum by the military junta in 2008. It is regarded by many as being introduced to safeguard the role of the military in Myanmar’s politics. It was controversially approved just weeks after Cyclone Nargis hit southern Myanmar. The storm saw an estimated 140,000 people killed and potentially millions displaced.
