Burma’s state media, known for its dogged support of the country’s former military junta, yesterday celebrated 2011 as the year the previous “authoritarian” regime ended.

Government mouthpiece the New Light of Myanmar said that last year, when a new nominally-civilian government took power and implemented a series of reform gestures, was a “transition period from the old era to the new one”.

“Most international observers were taken aback by the fact that Myanmar [Burma], which had been ruled by an authoritarian Tatmadaw government… has started practising democracy,” said an editorial ahead of Independence Day on 4 January. Tatmadaw is the term for the military.

Yesterday’s report said the junta had built the “foundations” for the recent changes and said its “goodwill” should be recognised, along with the “drive to change the country to a certain degree in a peaceful and stable way”.

Burma, a military dictatorship marked by the brutal suppression of dissent and international isolation for nearly half a century, saw a transition to a nominally-civilian — although army-backed — government in March.

The new regime has surprised observers and raised hopes of further changes by undertaking a series of reformist moves, including holding dialogue with democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi and reaching out to the West.

Until last year the New Light of Myanmar devoted much of its newsprint to gushing reports on the generals and attacks on foreign media and the title remains uncritical of the current leadership.

The comment piece said the year was the most significant in the country’s recent history and said it was marked by “remarkable changes”.

The report hailed last year’s meeting between Suu Kyi and president Thein Sein, a former junta prime minister, and said the decision by the Nobel Laureate and her party to run in upcoming by-election was a “significant success”.

It also lauded the government’s shock decision to suspend a Chinese-backed mega dam project and efforts to negotiate ceasefire deals with ethnic rebel groups, although it admitted that the talks had not all been successful, with fighting continuing in northern Kachin state.

In the past the ruling junta tended to use the anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain in 1948 to warn its people to remain vigilant against the dangers posed by other nations.

The New Light said the country was better off than those that had seen foreign intervention, like Iraq, and countries that have seen a wave of protest in the Arab world.

But the newspaper’s tone towards the outside world was muted, focussing on the benefits of “paddling our own canoe”.