Support Erodes for U.N. Envoy To Burma Ahead of Visit
By BENNY AVNI
New York Sun
March 7, 2008
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. envoy to Burma, scheduled to begin a long-delayed visit to Rangoon today, is losing the support of pro-democracy activists and advocates.
Ibrahim Gambari's scheduled trip, his third to Burma in the last year, is his first since the country's ruling junta announced plans to hold a national referendum on a proposed constitution in May and conduct a general election by 2010. It is unclear whether he will be allowed to meet with the junta leader, General Than Shwe, or opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pro-democracy groups, however, are calling for Secretary-General Ban to travel to Burma in Mr. Gambari's place, and for the U.N. Security Council to increase the pressure on the regime.
"Let's give Mr. Gambari room to continue his efforts," a U.N. spokeswoman, Michele Montas, told The New York Sun yesterday. Still, the envoy has expressed frustration at the lack of substantial progress in Burma, and several critics have said his trips have achieved little. The suggestion that Mr. Ban should go to Burma was raised most recently at a U.N. meeting of ambassadors from a group of Western and Asian countries, including America, known as "friends of Myanmar." Mr. Ban "does not exclude" the possibility of a Burma trip to raise the mission's diplomatic profile, a diplomat familiar the situation said yesterday, but no decision has been made.
Critics point to Mr. Gambari's public assertions that the junta's so-called road map to democracy, denounced by various pro-democracy groups as a sham, is "a step in the right direction." The road map is "a step in the wrong direction," the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Aung Din, said.
In a letter to Mr. Ban this week, 92 elected members of parliament from various Burmese opposition groups pledged to "organize all the people of Burma to reject" the regime's plan to hold the May referendum. And in a letter last month, 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates called on Mr. Ban to urge the Security Council to impose an arms embargo against the Burmese regime.
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Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
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