Does Gambari Visit Burma This Week?

RANGOON — The United Nations' special envoy to Burma is due to visit the country this week to pave the way for a possible visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a diplomat said Monday.

Ibrahim Gambari is scheduled to visit Thursday through Saturday to lay the groundwork for a trip in early July by the UN chief, said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to announce the visit.

Burma's UN spokesman Aye Win said he could not confirm either visit.

Ban's trip would come after he visits Japan from June 30 to July 2. The UN spokeswoman in New York, Michele Montas, said last week that the secretary-general had not yet decided whether he would visit Burma during his Asia trip.

The upcoming visits would be politically delicate because of the continuing trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is in prison and being tried on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest when an uninvited American man swam to her closely guarded lakeside home last month and stayed two days.

The UN has called repeatedly for political reconciliation in Burma, including the release of Suu Kyi. The country has been under military rule since 1962, and the junta refused to recognize the results of 1990 general elections won by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.

Suu Kyi's trial has drawn outrage from the international community and from her local supporters, who say the military government is using the incident as an excuse to keep her detained through elections scheduled for next year.

If convicted, Suu Kyi faces up to five years in prison. She has spent more than 13 of the past 19 years in detention without trial, mostly under house arrest.

Gambari has visited Burma seven times since becoming the UN's special envoy to the country in 2006. The visits have failed to nudge the military regime toward talks with the opposition.

Ban visited Burma after last year's devastating Cyclone Nargis and was instrumental in getting the isolationist government to allow more foreign relief workers into the country.


irrawaddy