Myanmar crackdown on "no" campaign begins: opposition

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's main opposition party called on Monday for international observers of the May 10 constitutional referendum, saying its "No" campaigners are being assaulted and their materials seized in the runup to the vote.

"Local authorities are committing acts of suppression by trying to seize documents of the NLD and detain or interrogate township organizers," the National League for Democracy (NLD) said a day after the junta-drafted charter was made public.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win told Reuters least three NLD were attacked by unknown assailants as they campaigned against the constitution in Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city.

"For this reason, it is now obvious that the forthcoming referendum cannot be free and fair," the party's executive committee said in a statement demanding foreign observers, including from the United Nations.

Myanmar Information Minister Kyaw Hsaw promised last month the vote would be "free and fair", but he bluntly rejected offers of U.N. technical assistance and monitors.

The charter, dismissed by Western critics as a ploy to entrench 46 years of army rule, grants the military an automatic 25 percent of seats in parliament.

It also gives the commander-in-chief the right to suspend the constitution at will.

The regime, which tightly controls the media in the former Burma, has urged the country's 53 million people to back the charter, a key step in the junta's seven-point "roadmap to democracy" meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010.