Myanmar: UN envoy heads back to Asia, to rope in neighbours

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was flying into Bangkok ahead of talks on Monday with Thailand’s leaders. He was then scheduled to travel to Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Japan before returning to Myanmar amid growing pressure on the junta to halt its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and open talks with the democratic opposition.

Gambari met with the junta’s leaders earlier this month during a four-day trip to Myanmar after troops opened fire on peaceful protests in Yangon. On Gambari’s return, the UN Secretary-General had said he could not call Gambari’s trip “a success”. This time Gambari’s mission is aimed at coordinating efforts among key Asian governments to help resolve the crisis.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was “encouraging special envoy Gambari to get back to Myanmar (also called Burma) as soon as possible”.

Rice said the junta’s arrests on Saturday of political activists “clearly demonstrate that there needs to be an international presence on the ground”. “Our view is that it’s a time for moving to some kind of process of reconciliation with the democratically elected Burmese opposition,” Rice told reporters aboard a plane en route from Russia to the West Asia. “But that time is well behind us, well past. It should have happened a long, long time ago and so every day that passes is too long.”

Myanmar’s military leaders have repeatedly rebuffed calls for reforms, saying the only way to bring change to the country is to follow the junta’s seven-step “roadmap” to democracy. The stance was reiterated on Sunday in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece of the junta.

“There will emerge a peaceful, modern and developed democratic nation—according to the state’s seven-step roadmap,” the newspaper’s editorial said.