Burma stonewalls Suu Kyi visit

The NLD CEC was allowed a brief meeting for about fifteen minutes with Aung San Suu Kyi at a government guest house before meeting with Gambari.

The NLD's five central executive committee (CEC) members and Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday after their brief meeting, urged the visiting UN envoy Gambari to put more pressure on the government to release all political prisoners, to review on the constitution, and to recognize the 1990 election result and to convene the parliament.

The NLD last week have requested the government to allow them a meeting with detained Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi without which they will have nothing to tell the visiting UN envoy.

The tripartite meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD CEC and Gambari at the government guest house in Rangoon lasted for about an hour.

The meeting on Monday did not include senior party members and leading intellectual Win Tin and Khin Maung Swe, who were both released from long imprisonment in last September.

Sources said the Burmese Ministry of Home Affairs had categorically requested the NLD not to include Win Tin and Khin Maung Swe for the meetings on Monday.

During the informal press briefing, the NLD decline to answer whether their meeting with Gambari can be hope as positive step.

Gambari, who arrived Rangoon on Saturday, will be leaving for Naypyitaw, Burma's new Jungle capital, on Tuesday but it is still unclear whether he will be met by Junta leader Senior General Than Shwe, who also declined to meet him during his last visit in August.

During his earlier visit in August, detained Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi also refused to meet him.

Gambari on Saturday met with Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win and other UN official delegations in Rangoon. On Sunday, he met with liaison minister Aung Kyi, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Minister for Health Dr. Kyaw Myint, Commission for Holding Referendum, and pro-junta civilian organizations including Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and other diplomats in Rangoon.


Burma stonewalls Suu Kyi visit

On this four-day trip which began Saturday, the United Nations has said Gambari wants "meaningful discussions with all concerned on all the points raised during his last visit."

But Gambari is not expected to be granted a meeting with the reclusive head of state Senior General Than Shwe, and it is not yet clear whether Aung San Suu Kyi will consent to meet with the UN negotiator.

On Sunday morning, Gambari met officials including Information Minister Kyaw Hsan and Foreign Minister Nyan Win in the commercial hub Rangoon.

"He also met with relations minister Aung Kyi," said a government official who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media. He refused to reveal what was discussed.
AFPAung Kyi is the minister tasked with liaising with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
©AFP/File AFP

Aung Kyi's appointment to coordinate junta contacts with Aung San Suu Kyi in October 2007 was seen as a major sop to the West after the violent suppression of anti-junta demonstrations in September that year.

But their last meeting was in January 2008, and Aung San Suu Kyi said soon after she was "not satisfied" with the way the dialogue was progressing.

Instead, the junta has forged ahead with its own "Roadmap to Democracy" which its says will lead to multi-party elections in 2010 but which dissidents deride as a sham as it does not include Aung San Suu Kyi.

Gambari later Sunday met with representatives of a commission which organised a referendum on Burma's new constitution in May last year.

The regime says the constitution passed with nearly 93 percent approval in a vote held days after the deadly Cyclone Nargis, although critics say the poll was not free and fair and the new charter simply enshrines junta rule.

Gambari also met with the International Committee of the Red Cross and foreign diplomats, Burmese officials said.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained by the junta for most of the last 19 years, and surprised observers in August by refusing to meet Gambari, a move interpreted as a snub after he had failed to secure any political reform.

Burmese officials have said Gambari will likely meet with the Nobel peace prize winner on Monday, echoing the expectations of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. (AFP)