Burma military officers 'jailed'

By Andrew Harding
BBC News Asia correspondent, Singapore

Than Shwe wants Burma to follow its "own roadmap to democracy"

Three senior army intelligence officers have been sentenced to 22 years in prison in more fallout from an apparent high-level power struggle, reports say.

This saw Prime Minister Khin Nyunt put under house arrest last month.

The men will join dozens of their colleagues already believed to have been jailed.

Officially this is all part of a corruption crackdown in intelligence services - Burma's military dictatorship cleaning up its act.

But there is a much more likely explanation - an army purge by hardliners consolidating their grip on power and gobbling up their rivals' business empires in the process.

Three weeks ago, when Khin Nyunt was unexpectedly removed from office, it was initially explained, in textbook dictatorship style, that "he was simply unwell".

In fact, he is under house arrest.

Since then, his power base in military intelligence has been systematically purged, hence all those long prison sentences.

The main beneficiary is the regime's uncompromising leader, Sen Gen Than Shwe.

He still insists Burma is following its own roadmap to democracy, but critics say that process is a sham and point out that the deposed prime minister was one of the few relatively moderate voices inside the regime.

This is not an encouraging time for the country's pro-democracy activists.

Ethnic rebel groups are also waiting to see if a series of informal ceasefires can withstand the current political upheavals.