Myanmat’s junta announced on Thursday that voters overwhelmingly backed a pro-military constitution - a move critics claim was an attempt to divert attention from its failure to deliver aid to victims of a devastating cyclone.

State radio said the draft constitution, which critics dismissed as a sham document designed to entrench the military’s rule, was approved by 92.4 percent of the 22 million eligible voters. It put voter turnout on Saturday at more than 99 per cent.

Meanwhile, the junta has asked neighbouring countries like India, Thailand, and others to assist by sending in rescue teams.

Voting was postponed until May 24 in the Irrawaddy delta and Yangon areas, which were worst hit by Cyclone Nargis. But state radio said the results of the late balloting could not mathematically reverse the constitution’s approval.

The constitution announcement came a day after Myanmar’s government issued a revised cyclone casualty toll, saying 38,491 were known dead and 27,838 were missing.

But the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said its estimate put the number of dead between 68,833 and 127,990. U.N. officials have said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the May 2-3 cyclone. Human Rights Watch slammed the timing of the constitution announcement and questioned the results.

David Mathieson, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, said the junta hopes that by announcing the results now it would divert attention away from its handling of the disaster and its refusal to cooperate with the international community.

“It seems strategically timed because you would have thought with how busy they were in cleaning up the cyclone that they never would have had time to count this properly,” he said.

... contd.