UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of her pro-democracy party yesterday after Myanmar's junta refused to include them in its election process.
Gambari held talks for about one hour with the National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders. An NLD spokesman refused to reveal the contents of the talks between Gambari and Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest and Gambari had also been allowed to meet her on his two previous visits.
Party leaders dodged reporters after the talks, which came one day after a refusal by the junta to give the NLD a role in a constitutional referendum planned for May and multiparty elections set for 2010.
If held, the elections would be the first since Aung San Suu Kyi led the NLD to a landslide victory in 1990 polls, a result never recognized by the regime.
The new constitution would bar Aung San Suu Kyi from future elections because of her marriage to a foreigner, the late Briton Michael Aris.
A new law governing the referendum also sharply limits her party's ability to campaign, criminalizing public speeches and leaflets about the vote.
Western countries have decried Myanmar's vote plans for failing to include the NLD, and Gambari arrived on Thursday on a mission to press the regime to open up the process.
Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told Gambari during more than two hours of talks on Friday that the junta would not make any changes to the proposed charter.
"The constitution has already been drafted and it should not be amended again," said Kyaw Hsan, whose lengthy comments were reported in detail by state media.
The minister also accused of Gambari of bias in favor of Aung San Suu Kyi, blasting him for releasing a letter from her after his last visit in November.
"We are very astonished and dismayed for your involvement in this matter," Kyaw Hsan said in the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
"Sadly, you went beyond your mandate. Hence, the majority of people are criticizing it as a biased act. Some even believe that you prepared the statement in advance and released it after coordinating with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.
"The statement was dangerous to the degree of hurting the prevailing peace and stability of the nation," the minister said.
He also added that if Gambari tried to force the country to meet Western calls for reform, "we are concerned that your task of offering impartial advice may be undermined."
The comments appeared to dash any hopes that the regime would make concessions in its election plan.
The NLD has warned that the public would not accept the junta's new charter, but has stopped short of calling for a boycott or urging a "no" vote.
Gambari has tried to open a dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the regime following the government's violent crackdown in September on anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks, which left at least 31 dead, the UN said.
His initial efforts seemed promising, as the regime sought to ease international outrage over the bloodshed.
After his first mission, the junta appointed a liaison officer to meet Aung San Suu Kyi while military supremo Senior General Than Shwe made a heavily conditioned offer to meet her himself.
But Than Shwe shunned Gambari on his last visit and he has given no sign that he plans to meet with the envoy during his visit.
Even the talks with the liaison officer have dragged, with Aung San Suu Kyi saying in January that she was "not satisfied" with their progress.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS