UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari arrived in military-ruled Myanmar yesterday for five days of talks to try to kick-start negotiations between the junta and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
With little to show from his previous five missions to the former Burma, hopes of a breakthrough on Gambari’s sixth visit are low.
“Frankly, we don’t expect anything at all out of his visit,” said one retired politician, who asked not to be named.
The former Nigerian foreign minister is expected to meet Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, who has been under continuous house arrest for the last five years, as well as senior members of her National League for Democracy (NLD).
On the government side, much of his contact is likely to be with “Liaison Minister” Aung Kyi, appointed as a go-between for the junta and Suu Kyi after last September’s bloody crackdown on democracy protests.
Aung Kyi has met Suu Kyi only four times — most recently in January — suggesting that his job is nothing more than a sop to the international community after worldwide condemnation of the crackdown, in which at least 31 people were killed.
The NLD won an election landslide in 1990, only to be denied power by the military, which has ruled unchecked since a 1962 coup.
In May, the generals brushed aside the devastation and 134,000 deaths caused by Cyclone Nargis to stage a referendum on a new constitution that passed with more than 92 percent approval. There was no independent monitoring of the vote.
Under a seven-step “roadmap to democracy,” the passage of the charter means multi-party elections will take place in 2010, although the generals will be handing over little if any real power to an elected leadership.
The military will have an automatic 25 percent of seats in parliament, control of key ministries and the right to suspend the constitution at will.
The referendum means Gambari has even less room to maneuver than before.
“He won’t be able to make the regime deviate from its roadmap,” the retired politician said. “The only way to break the deadlock is to persuade the NLD to run in the 2010 election and to ask the regime to make it as free and fair as possible.”
The charter also bans Myanmar nationals from political office if they have foreign spouses or children with foreign passports — a clause said to prevent the election of Suu Kyi. Her husband, now dead but with whom she had two sons, was British.
Suu Kyi was allowed a rare meeting with her lawyer on the eve of the UN envoy’s visit. She spoke with her lawyer Kyi Win for more than four hours Sunday, in their second encounter this month, said Nyan Win, spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
Aung San Suu Kyi was also granted a visit by her doctor Tin Myo Win on Sunday, who gave her a medical checkup — her first since February.
The spokesman Nyan Win called the meetings “significant,” noting that before this month she had not been allowed to see her lawyer since 2004.
The NLD has appealed against the latest extension of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, but has received no response from the government. Nyan Win said he did not know whether Kyi Win discussed the appeal with her.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 19 years confined to her home. Her latest detention began more than five years ago, and she has been allowed little contact with the outside world.
After the military’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks in September, the military sought to ease international outrage at the bloodshed by appointing a liaison officer, labor minister Aung Kyi, to meet with her.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never allowed them to take office.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS