UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari was in Myanmar's bunker-like new capital yesterday hoping to nudge the country's ruling generals into reconciliation talks with their pro-democracy opponents.
Gambari arrived on Saturday for his second visit since the junta violently suppressed anti-government demonstrations in September.
The day before his arrival in Yangon, the junta announced it planned to expel the top UN diplomat in the country, adding an extra hurdle to the envoy's already difficult mission.
After a brief stopover in Yangon, Gambari flew to Naypyitaw to meet with senior leaders, government officials said, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to the media.
It was not known which leaders would meet him in Naypyitaw, 400 km north of Yangon, where the generals have established a new capital in a remote area nestled in mountain jungles, or whether he would later be allowed to visit detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon.
Expected to be high on Gambari's agenda is the junta's accusation that UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie went beyond his duties by criticizing the generals' failure to meet the economic and humanitarian needs of its people, and by saying this was the cause of September's mass pro-democracy protests.
The military has said 10 people were killed in the crackdown, but diplomats and dissidents say the death toll is much higher. Thousands were detained.
The junta gave foreign diplomats and UN representatives a note saying the government did not intend to continue Petrie's assignment in the country.
The UN said in a statement that Gambari met with Petrie after his arrival and would "stay in Myanmar as long as necessary to accomplish his mission."
Gambari carried a message of support for Petrie from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as well as one to junta head Senior General Than Shwe, it said.
Gambari was earlier dispatched to Myanmar after the government crackdown, meeting with Than Shwe as well as twice with Aung San Suu Kyi.
But little of substance has changed on Myanmar's political scene since, and analysts expect that little will result from Gambari's current visit.
"It's a game. It's the only game in town, but it's a game," said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert from Georgetown University who visited the country last month and met with ministerial-level officials.
The UN has attempted to bring about reconciliation for almost two decades.
The junta has from time to time made minor concessions, such as brief meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi, but continues to perpetuate its 45-year stranglehold on power -- and sometimes snub its nose at the international community.
Protest leaders who recently escaped to Thailand say some still look on the UN with hope, but others are deeply disillusioned that it has failed to be more forceful in dealing with the generals.
"The world seems to have accepted the lies of the [junta]. This is a matter of life or death but so far the UN and the world have only come up with words," said Kar Kar Pancha, a Yangon businessman who fled to the Thai border.
Some people in Myanmar have even taken to calling Gambari Kyauk Yu Pyan, translated as "one who takes gems and then leaves."
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.