UN envoy to ‘test waters’ in Myanmar

Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: January 28. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 28. 2009 5:30AM GMT

The reclusive Myanmar leader Senior Gen Than Shwe salutes during the 10th graduation parade of the Defense Services Medical Academy in Yangon, Myanmar, last month. Khin Maung / AP

BANGKOK // The UN’s special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, will make another visit to the country this week in what may be his final effort to broker talks between the military government and the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The trip starts on Saturday and is scheduled to end on Tuesday, Mr Gambari told The National. But he declined to give any more details. “We are still working on the modalities of the visit,” he said.

He is expected to meet senior members of the military government, opposition leaders, including Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, and representatives of the country’s ethnic minorities, according to senior UN officials who requested anonymity.

“Although it’s only a four-day working trip, he will extend his stay if it seems progress can be made on his top priorities,” a UN official close to Mr Gambari said. “Meeting Aung San Suu Kyi and hearing her views is obviously a crucial part of this visit,” he said. She did not see him on his last visit, though she had on a previous trip.

The former Nigerian diplomat will tour the region after his talks with the military, according to UN sources in New York. Although all the stops have not yet been finalised, he is expected to visit Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta, Singapore and Tokyo for discussions on how best to proceed.

This visit signals the UN’s renewed efforts to engage directly the military regime in Myanmar, once known as Burma, after months of debate about how best to encourage the junta to introduce genuine democratic reforms and include all the country’s political players, especially Ms Suu Kyi. A planned December visit by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, was cancelled because he felt his visit would not produce any results.

Mr Gambari’s latest visit – his first in five months, and his seventh since he took the job in early 2006 – is something of a stock-taking mission, according to diplomats in Yangon, the former capital.

“Mr Gambari will be testing the waters, seeing where the regime might be willing to accept international support and assistance, while at the same time reiterating the international community’s message: national reconciliation must be genuine and truly inclusive,” said a western diplomat in the former capital. Most analysts remain pessimistic Mr Gambari will achieve much.

The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Ms Suu Kyi, is hopeful that the visit will at least break the ice, and may lead to renewed contact between them and the junta, and the possible start of tentative talks – at least at a lower level within the regime.

But many analysts are cautious about raising expectations for this visit because Mr Gambari’s failed efforts to produce results on his last visit led to massive resentment within the country. “Don’t expect anything,” said a western diplomat who has been close to the international mediation efforts. “The visit has a very low objectives and expectations,” he said.

The real test of whether the envoy’s forthcoming trip is more successful than usual will be whether he is able to meet the junta’s top general, Than Shwe. The senior general has refused to meet him on all but his first few visits.

“He is likely only to be allowed to meet the largely ceremonial prime minister, Thein Sein,” said Win Min, a Burmese academic based at Chiang Mai, Thailand. “The top general obviously has no regard for him and believes it isn’t necessary to talk directly to him.”

The NLD said it would discuss with Mr Gambari the arrest and harsh sentencing of more than 300 NLD members and other political prisoners over the past few months. The number of political prisoners has more than doubled in the past year to nearly 2,500, according to Benjamin Zawacki, the Myanmar researcher of the UK-based group Amnesty International.

But the envoy is more likely to be trying to find a way to get the regime to accept international mediation. The junta did eventually agree to a tripartite formula – the UN, the regional grouping ASEAN and the government – to provide and monitor international assistance to the regime after Cyclone Nargis, which hit the country in May. “This may also be a formula for the political arena as well,” Surin Pitsuwan, the ASEAN secretary-general, recently said in an interview.

ljagan@thenational.ae