Swansong visit for UN's Myanmar
envoy By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - The United Nations special envoy
to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, has arrived in the
country for the start of a four-day visit to
discuss the military regime's newly announced
plans for political change, including a referendum
on a new constitution later this year to be
followed by democratic elections in 2010.
But while the senior envoy remains
optimistic about his mission, his third trip to
the country since last year's brutal military
crackdown on Buddhist monk-led mass
demonstrations, the signs emerging from the
military government are that Gambari's visit could
be a final courtesy call and mark the UN's forced
disengagement from the country's political reform
plans.
"I will continue to press the
Myanmar government to engage with [jailed
opposition leader] Aung San Suu Kyi in a
substantive
dialogue
in order to produce a positive outcome that will
promote an all-inclusive and transparent process,"
Gambari told Asia Times Online by telephone from
Singapore in transit to Myanmar.
Yet the
military government's newly announced plans for
political change appear to leave the envoy with
little room for maneuver during his talks with
junta leaders - though he is expected to continue
to press for Suu Kyi's release and her involvement
in the political transition from military to some
form of democratic rule.
Gambari is
scheduled to depart after four days in the
country, though he will reportedly bid to extend
his stay, according to sources close to the envoy.
"Gambari hopes to stay as long as necessary," UN
spokeswoman Michele Montas told a press briefing
in New York this week. Diplomatic pressure from
both Beijing and New Delhi opened doors to his
visit, according to diplomats familiar with the
situation. The junta had originally told the UN
envoy that they were not available to host him
until after mid-April.
"It's easy for the
junta to agree to Gambari's visit now, as he
really has nothing to talk about," a Bangkok-based
diplomat, close to the international mediation
efforts with the Myanmar government, told Asia
Times Online on condition of anonymity. "[Senior
General] Than Shwe's decision to set a timetable
for the roadmap was a strategic move to block both
Maung Aye - his deputy - from assuming power later
and the international community, especially
Gambari, from playing a role in the process," he
added. Gambari is not expected to meet with Than
Shwe during his visit, according to sources
familiar with his itinerary.
Gambari, for
his part, at least publicly, remains upbeat. "I
will continue my consultations in Myanmar and
follow up on a number of recommendations I left
with the government during my last trip in
November 2007," he told Asia Times Online by
telephone. "These include immediate steps to
address the human rights situation; progress on
time-bound dialogue between the government and
Aung San Suu Kyi; the forthcoming referendum and
the electoral process; economic and humanitarian
issues; as well as a more regularized process of
engagement with the [UN] secretary general's good
offices," the envoy added.
Deaf junta
ears When Gambari visited Myanmar last
November, he took a three-pronged approach to his
mediation effort, sources close to the envoy say.
First he asked to be involved in a constitutional
review process after the National Convention had
completed drawing up its guidelines; second he
wanted to encourage the regime to make the
national reconciliation process more inclusive and
involve Suu Kyi and her National League for
Democracy political party; third he recommended
that the government set up a Poverty Alleviation
Committee.
Now, with the political change
agenda unilaterally set by the junta, some
analysts contend that the most Gambari can hope
for is a UN role in the junta's economic reform
program. "The junta will ask him to approve the
new constitution that has just been finalized, and
give it credibility in the hope of deflecting
further international pressure," a government
source said. "That's what they would see as his
role in any constitutional review process."
According to a UN insider, Gambari was
urged by the Chinese government when he visited
Beijing last month to accept the junta's new
charter and its democratic roadmap's plan to hold
general elections. The UN envoy will likely be
presented the freshly completed charter, the
details of which have so far remained a closely
guarded junta secret. Diplomats and opposition
politicians contacted by Asia Times Online this
week said universally that they had been unable to
obtain a copy of the charter.
Gambari,
similar to previous UN envoys to Myanmar who in
the end have been spurned by the junta, faces an
uphill task. The recommendations he made in
November have in general been ignored, including
his proposed confidence-building measures with the
political National League for Democracy (NLD)-led
opposition. To be fair, the regime did appoint a
liaison minister, Labor Minister Aung Kyi, to meet
regularly with opposition leader Suu Kyi. But the
envoy's recommendation that there be weekly
discussions between the two has been sidestepped
as there have only been half-a-dozen meetings
since he was appointed over five months ago.
Even more crucially, Gambari's suggestion
that if there is to be a genuine dialogue process
it was essential for the detained Suu Kyi to meet
other NLD members - especially the party's central
executive committee - fell on deaf junta ears. The
opposition leader has only been allowed to meet
NLD members twice since Gambari's last visit,
though she has been allowed to exchange daily
messages with party leaders, according to senior
party sources.
During Gambari's two trips
to Myanmar last year, Suu Kyi asked the envoy to
try to persuade the regime to allow her regular
contact with a liaison officer representing the UN
and international community. This was very
successful the last time Suu Kyi was under house
arrest and she held secret reconciliation talks
with the regime in 2003, which were under the
supervision of former intelligence chief General
Khin Nyunt.
Communication
breakdowns According to UN sources,
Gambari had asked for this communication channel
to be restored, as well as permission for him to
set up his own office in Yangon. To date there has
been no progress on that request, though Gambari
told Asia Times Online it would be among the
issues he raises with the regime during his trip.
However, Gambari is not expected to make much
headway on these confidence-building measures, let
alone on the more substantive issue of Suu Kyi's
and the NLD's participation in the junta's plan to
hold multi-party elections in 2010.
"We
have been very consistent in saying that the
recent announcement by the authorities of the
referendum on the government constitution in May,
and elections that will lead to a multi-party
democracy in 2010, are a potentially significant
step," Gambari told journalists in Jakarta
recently. "But all the same, this process has to
be credible and has to be all-inclusive," he said.
Central to that objective is Suu Kyi's
release from house arrest. In previous discussions
between Gambari's UN predecessor, Razali Ismail,
the then-prime minister and military intelligence
chief General Khin Nyunt had agreed that she would
be freed after the new constitution was ratified,
according to sources close to Razali at the time.
Diplomats monitoring the situation now,
however, anticipate the earliest the junta might
release her is after the 2010 elections have been
held. "The junta do not plan to release her in the
near future and are almost certain to detain her
until after the elections. Only then do they see a
role for her in helping with economic reform," an
Asian diplomat who has regular contact with the
regime leaders said.
Gambari is expected
to push for a renewed commitment from the junta
for her release after the constitutional
referendum in May. Gambari told Asia Times Online
he would certainly raise the issue of the Nobel
Peace Prize-winning opposition leader's continued
detention and her participation in the proposed
elections in 2010.
However he will likely
be pushing his points on lower-ranking junta
officials - and notably not junta leader Than
Shwe. "Than Shwe is still furious at Gambari
because he smuggled out a letter from Aung San Suu
Kyi [which he made public in Singapore on his way
back to New York to report to the UN secretary
general] last time," claims the Chiang Mai-based
Myanmar academic Win Min. According to Asian
diplomats in contact with Myanmar government
officials, junta leaders felt the release of the
letter broke with diplomatic protocols. The crux
of the matter, though, is that junta leaders
remain convinced that Gambari is too close to the
United States, a view many regional diplomats
endorse. "He is constantly consulting [US First
Lady] Laura Bush. She seems to be running policy,
not the UN - or that's how it appears to Than
Shwe," said an Asian diplomat.
Myanmar's
leaders are also reportedly disappointed with the
envoy because they feel he has not produced
anything in return for their reluctant engagement
with the international community. Instead, from
the junta's perspective, the US and European Union
proceeded to impose new financial sanctions
against the regime in response to its armed
crackdown on last year's street demonstrations.
The junta has since hinted in various ways
that the UN envoy's mediating mission has hit a
dead end. Government censors have in recent weeks
spiked stories in the local press that mentioned
Gambari by name or alluded to UN mediation efforts
in other global hot spots.
That included a
proposed article in the local Myanmar Times which
reported that Prime Minister Thein Sein and
Gambari were both coincidentally in Cambodia last
December, according to Western diplomats close to
the paper's editors. Last month when UN secretary
general Ban Ki-moon and his predecessor Kofi Annan
mediated Kenya's political crisis, a foreign news
agency article on the subject in the Myanmar Times
was also banned by state censors.
Closer
to home, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, which unlike the US and the European
Union has in recent years bid to diplomatically
engage the junta, during a retreat for foreign
ministers earlier this month stressed that the
2010 elections must be free and fair. "[Myanmar
Foreign Minister] Nyan Win was told in no
uncertain terms that while the referendum was
considered a domestic matter - it was essential
that is was a credible process," according to a
Southeast Asian diplomat who was in attendance at
the meeting.
Yet Gambari will likely find
delivering even this broad brushstroke message
hard-going. "Sometimes, I myself am frustrated
that the tangible results are not faster or we
have not achieved more," Gambari told Asia Times
Online. "But we have to build on what we have and
continue to press for more results ... For me,
failure is not an option."
If only
Myanmar's junta concurred.
Larry Jagan
previously covered Myanmar politics for the
British Broadcasting Corporation. He is currently
a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
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