Top UN envoy to press Myanmar on reforms
Ibrahim Gambari is expected to arrive in the country on Thursday for the most important UN mission in two years. He is scheduled to meet government officials as well as members of civil society and the opposition. He has also asked to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who is currently under house arrest.
Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A top United Nations envoy was due to arrive in military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday, in the highest-level mission here in more than two years to press the junta on democratic reforms.
Ibrahim Gambari, the highest-ranking UN official for political affairs, was expected to meet with senior government officials, members of civil society, and the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). His three-day mission comes as the junta is pursuing a military campaign against ethnic rebels while stepping up pressure on the NLD, which is led by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mr Gambari, the UN under-secretary general for political affairs, has asked to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric in New York. NLD spokesman Myint Thein in Yangon said the party did not believe the military would approve a meeting between Mr Gambari and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest is expected to be extended next week. But Stephane Dujarric said that Mr Gambari would press for her release as part of efforts to push the country toward democracy. "The position of the secretary general on Aung San Suu Kyis detention is very clear," Mr Dujarric said. "He has consistently urged her release from detention. Under secretary general Gambari will certainly reinforce that message while in Myanmar."
The military rulers have shunned a series of UN envoys for years, which Mr Mr Dujarric said made this mission "an overdue and potentially important opportunity to assess developments in the country firsthand and to see what more can be done" to move the country toward democracy. "Gambari will convey a clear message that Myanmar's prospects for improved relations with the international community will depend on tangible progress in restoring democratic freedoms and full respect for human rights," he said.
Six UN human rights experts on Tuesday called on the military to end its offensive against ethnic Karen rebels and its brutal impact on thousands of civilians. Some 11,000 people are believed to have fled their homes because of the violence.
Myanmar's reclusive junta supremo, Senior General Than Shwe, has not hesitated to turn away other envoys in recent years. Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, who stepped down earlier this year after six years as the UN's rights envoy to Myanmar, was last allowed into the country in 2003. Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar, stepped down in January after being denied entry for two years. A third UN envoy, Indonesia's Ali Alatas, was allowed to visit in August but only for a trip purportedly about UN reforms.
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17/03/2021 13:08
25/10/2007
