'Subversive elements with negative attitude are resorting to diverse means and ways such as driving a wedge among the national races, misleading the people, and aiding and abetting anti-government groups to weaken and break up the Union,' Senior General Than Shwe said in a national 'Union Day' address.

The former Burma's official name is the 'Union of Myanmar'.

The 75-year-old military supremo's message was carried in all official newspapers and broadcast on television from the new capital, Naypyidaw, although a power blackout in the old capital, Yangon, ensured few people there got to see it.

His exhortation to the nation's 53 million people to 'make endeavours for the emergence of an enduring State Constitution' comes three days after the announcement of a referendum on the army-drafted charter in May and elections in 2010.

The opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a 1990 election only to be denied power by the military, boycotted a constitution-drafting National Convention while its leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest.

The NLD is expected to make its position clear on the referendum later on Tuesday.

Although not yet completed, snippets of the new charter in state-controlled media suggest the army commander-in-chief will be the most powerful figure in the country, able to appoint key ministers and assume power 'in times of emergency'.

It also gives the military a quarter of seats in parliament and a veto over decisions made by legislators.

The '88 Generation Students', a group of leading dissidents from a failed 1988 uprising, have already dismissed the charter as an attempt by the generals to legitimise their iron grip on power, and have urged people not to endorse it.

It was also rejected by the underground All Burma Monks Alliance, which played a role in last September's pro-democracy protests which evolved from small demonstrations against shock fuel price rises and were crushed by the regime.

The group vowed to 'keep on fighting by all means in order to help the entire people get over poverty and destitution'.

It's a start, says Asean
The United States says the referendum will be a sham conducted in a 'pervasive climate of fear'.

The United Nations, which is trying to foster talks between the generals and Suu Kyi, has been more cautious in its criticism.

The 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), which has been frustrated at the generals' foot-dragging on reform since they joined in 1997 but refused to get tough with Myanmar, called it a 'clear, definite beginning'.

'We have to begin somewhere. I personally welcome it,' Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told Reuters in Bangkok.

'We have to see how things transpire and whether that direction of development is going to meet the expectation of the people of Myanmar.'

The Feb 12 'Union Day' dates back to a 1947 agreement between the Burmese majority and minority groups to demand independence from Britain.

The country has been under military rule since 1962 and has been riven by dozens of guerrilla conflicts with ethnic militias, mostly in the mountainous border areas abutting Thailand, China, Bangladesh and India.

More than 1,100 people are imprisoned on account of their political or religious beliefs, the United Nations says, and hundreds more have fled persecution to neighbouring countries.

Suu Kyi's party calls for 'fair political climate' in Myanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy on Tuesday urged the military government to create a 'fair political climate', after the regime announced a constitutional referendum for May.

The party did not mention the junta's plans for a referendum, which is meant to clear the way for elections in 2010, but repeated its long-standing call for a dialogue with the junta on national reconciliation.

'The (junta) has the main responsibility to realise national reconciliation, which is essential for the country,' the party said in a statement, read out by senior member Than Tun.

'Moreover, it also has the responsibility to create a fair political climate and environment,' the statement added.

The party repeated its call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, as well as her deputy Tin Oo and the 1,800 other political prisoners believed held in the country.

Tin Oo is also under house arrest, and the military is expected to announce an extension of his confinement this week.

The party released the statement at its headquarters in Yangon to mark Union Day, which commemorates a declaration of unity among Myanmar's many ethnic groups during the struggle for independence from Britain.

The regime announced its timetable for elections amid mounting international pressure over its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in September, during which the United Nations says at least 31 people were killed.

If held, the proposed elections would be the first since 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory that was ignored by the junta.

The generals have ignored repeated calls to free Aung San Suu Kyi and open a political dialogue, instead sticking to their own so-called 'road map to democracy', which critics say will enshrine the military's rule. -- REUTERS