KUALA LUMPUR - HUNDREDS of protesters in Japan and Malaysia denounced Myanmar's military junta for staging a constitutional referendum on Saturday, just a week after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country.

Some 500 people, mostly wearing red T-shirts emblazoned with the word 'No', gathered outside the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur, many silently murmuring prayers.

'The military has been pointing the gun at our people for too long, they cannot take pity with this cyclone,' said Mr Than Tun Aung, a refugee who led the protest. 'People are dying and they still want to go on with this artificial democracy.'

Hundreds of protesters also took the streets of Tokyo, shouting anti-government slogans and carrying banners which read 'SOS Burma' and 'Burma no need killer Than Shwe', referring to the junta supremo.

Even before Cyclone Nargis, groups opposed to military rule and foreign governments, led by the United States, had denounced the constitution and vote as an attempt by the military to legitimise its 46-year grip on power.

State-run TV has repeatedly told citizens it was their 'patriotic duty' to approve the new constitution that enshrines a dominant role for the military, which has ruled the country of 53 million since a 1962 coup.

More than a week after Cyclone Nargis swept up the Irrawaddy Delta, packing 190 kph winds that whipped up a wall of sea-water pulverising everything it its path, aid was barely dribbling to 1.5 million increasingly desperate survivors.

Many of the protesters in Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur were refugees from Myanmar.

'I lost my country when I came to Malaysia, now I have also lost my sister and two brothers. I don't know where they are,' said a food stall helper, who wanted to be known as Richard, in Kuala Lumpur.

'All I can do is wait outside the embassy and let them know how I feel.'

In Tokyo, protesters outside the Myanmar embassy demanded the military ruler postpone the referendum.

'They are thinking for themselves, not for the people,' Mr Maung Min Nyo, director of the Burma Office Japan, said.

'We ... are very angry and demand the military junta assist the people as quickly as they can and they have to postpone their referendum.'