Asia Times: The UN at dead-end in Myanmar - Larry Jagan
Tue 26 Aug 2008
While the United Nations heaps praise on Myanmar’s ruling junta for its collaborative spirit in dealing with the Cyclone Nargis disaster, the military regime has made it clear that cooperation stops when it comes to UN attempts to mediate a political breakthrough in the country.
UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari’s latest mission to break the deadlock between the military junta and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi ended in failure over the weekend. His ongoing efforts to establish a dialogue between the two sides collapsed and the diplomat left the country embarrassingly empty-handed.
Even Aung San Suu Kyi, the charismatic leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), refused to see him during this trip, although he had met her on all previous visits. More crucially, Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, also failed to meet any senior members of the country’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
“It’s clearly the end of the road for Gambari - his role as an interlocutor is finished if he is unable to talk directly to either Aung San Suu Kyi or [junta leader] Than Shwe,” said a Western diplomat based in Yangon. “He has no more cards to play.”
Gambari’s failure raises doubts about the UN’s future role in Myanmar’s political impasse and perhaps other conflict resolution efforts around the world. In an exclusive interview with Asia Times Online earlier this year Gambari said: “It is our job, and a continuing challenge at the UN to make the impossible possible, and will continue my efforts at mediation regardless.”
He added: “Nonetheless, I sometimes wonder whether it is realized that if I fail, and the UN fails, this would have negative consequences for the role of the organization in terms of mediation, conflict prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts, not only in [Myanmar] but throughout the world.”
Gambari was scheduled to meet Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretary general Surin Pitsuwan after leaving Yangon. The UN had clearly hoped to build on the goodwill generated from the joint cyclone relief efforts with ASEAN and the Myanmar government to push its mediation agenda and encourage the junta to make their planned transition to democracy by 2010 more credible in the international eye.
With the UN’s failure “the ball is now back in Asia’s court”, said academic Win Min, an independent academic based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. “ASEAN and China have been happy to hide behind the UN. Now they will have to take the lead to try to convince the junta to make their roadmap credible and acceptable to the region and the international community.”
Gambari had prioritized kick-starting the stalled talks between the two sides, pressing for the release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi who is still under house arrest, and discussing the junta’s roadmap to democracy and the planned elections in 2010. He is believed to have pressed these matters on certain government ministers, including the prime minister, General Thein Sein, on the last day of his visit.
He also passed along a letter to Than Shwe in relation to a tentatively planned visit by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon later this year, according to diplomats in Yangon. “The SG has also indicated his intention to return to Myanmar, when conditions are right, to continue his dialogue with the Myanmar leadership,” a senior UN spokesperson, Marie Okabe told journalists earlier this week.
Gambari also met many groups nominated by the regime to brief him and convince the envoy to endorse the regime’s roadmap to democracy, which will culminate with elections in 2010. These groups included small splinter ethnic groups, a break-away faction of former student activists and defectors from the NLD. He also held talks with the government-linked Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which was responsible for the brutal attack on Aung San Suu Kyi five years ago and expected to transform itself into a civilian political party before the planned 2010 elections.
Many of these organizations are likely to stand candidates in the forthcoming elections, according to activists and diplomats in Yangon. Senior junta leaders, including the top general Than Shwe, who are all ensconced in their new capital Naypyidaw some 400 kilometers north of the old capital, meanwhile kept Gambari at arm’s length, as they have done on his last two trips.
Iconic snub
The UN envoy originally planned to meet opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi at the state guesthouse on Wednesday, but she did not show up, according to NLD sources in Yangon. The UN envoy also sent two of his assistants to her residence on Friday morning, but the pro-democracy leader did not respond.
“She’s making a point - that she is no longer willing to be wheeled out like a circus act just so the regime can convey a bogus impression of ‘dialogue’,” according to a Western diplomat based in Yangon.
“Aung San Suu Kyi is refusing to see the UN envoy before he sees a senior representative of the SPDC,” an opposition source close to the detained leader told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. “She feels there is no point in meeting Gambari at the moment, as he has nothing from the generals to report or offer,” he said.
To certain Asian diplomats, though, Aung San Suu Kyi’s actions were an affront. “It’s un-Asian to let the envoy wait in vain for her to show up,” said a Japanese diplomat, who closely follows Myanmar. “It seems unusually rude, to the extent that it gives the impression of being insensitive.”
It will only serve to further undermine Gambari’s credibility and strengthen the regime’s belief that Aung San Suu Kyi is “ill-tempered and uncompromising”, the diplomat added. Indeed the regime made the most of the snub over their tightly controlled media, with one broadcast showing Myanmar government officials outside her personal residence shouting to her through a megaphone: “Mr Gambari wants to meet you.”
The visit represented Gambari’s sixth overall visit and fourth in the aftermath of the regime’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist monk-led street protests last year since replacing the previous UN envoy, Ismail Razali, more than three years ago.
In November 2007, Gambari smuggled out and made public a letter from the opposition leader that appealed to the country’s military leaders to put aside their differences with her and to work together on national reconciliation for the sake of the whole country. The disclosure infuriated the regime, who denounced her and Gambari in the state media for weeks afterwards.
With Gambari’s failure, Asian countries are expected to play a bigger future role in seeking to influence the intransigent regime. The international community, especially China, had exerted substantial pressure on the junta behind the scenes to allow the UN envoy to visit the country. He originally wanted to return to Myanmar before the constitution referendum held in May despite the devastation caused by the Cyclone Nargis the week before the poll was scheduled.
In recent months Indonesia has also been trying to develop an international consensus on Myanmar at several high-level but informal meetings at the UN in New York. Now a member of the UN Security Council and an important ASEAN member, the Indonesians have taken a leading role in trying to find news ways of exerting international influence on Myanmar. Jakarta is also working closely with China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and India to convince the junta they must make their democratic roadmap credible to the international community.
“Myanmar claims to have a new constitution and these elections [planned for 2010] will be multi-party elections, but what is important for us at ASEAN is to ensure that a more credible process is taking place,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told journalists in Jakarta earlier this week. Recently taking over as ASEAN’s chair for the next 18 months, Thailand, a junta ally, will also look for ways to nudge the junta.
Thailand’s new Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag has just completed a two-day visit to Myanmar. There is no doubt that Myanmar’s roadmap featured prominently during his talks with the regime. It is presumed he was given a warmer reception and more candid briefing than Gambari received during his more high-profile, and most likely, last visit.
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
Tue 26 Aug 2008
While the United Nations heaps praise on Myanmar’s ruling junta for its collaborative spirit in dealing with the Cyclone Nargis disaster, the military regime has made it clear that cooperation stops when it comes to UN attempts to mediate a political breakthrough in the country.
UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari’s latest mission to break the deadlock between the military junta and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi ended in failure over the weekend. His ongoing efforts to establish a dialogue between the two sides collapsed and the diplomat left the country embarrassingly empty-handed.
Even Aung San Suu Kyi, the charismatic leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), refused to see him during this trip, although he had met her on all previous visits. More crucially, Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, also failed to meet any senior members of the country’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
“It’s clearly the end of the road for Gambari - his role as an interlocutor is finished if he is unable to talk directly to either Aung San Suu Kyi or [junta leader] Than Shwe,” said a Western diplomat based in Yangon. “He has no more cards to play.”
Gambari’s failure raises doubts about the UN’s future role in Myanmar’s political impasse and perhaps other conflict resolution efforts around the world. In an exclusive interview with Asia Times Online earlier this year Gambari said: “It is our job, and a continuing challenge at the UN to make the impossible possible, and will continue my efforts at mediation regardless.”
He added: “Nonetheless, I sometimes wonder whether it is realized that if I fail, and the UN fails, this would have negative consequences for the role of the organization in terms of mediation, conflict prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts, not only in [Myanmar] but throughout the world.”
Gambari was scheduled to meet Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretary general Surin Pitsuwan after leaving Yangon. The UN had clearly hoped to build on the goodwill generated from the joint cyclone relief efforts with ASEAN and the Myanmar government to push its mediation agenda and encourage the junta to make their planned transition to democracy by 2010 more credible in the international eye.
With the UN’s failure “the ball is now back in Asia’s court”, said academic Win Min, an independent academic based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. “ASEAN and China have been happy to hide behind the UN. Now they will have to take the lead to try to convince the junta to make their roadmap credible and acceptable to the region and the international community.”
Gambari had prioritized kick-starting the stalled talks between the two sides, pressing for the release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi who is still under house arrest, and discussing the junta’s roadmap to democracy and the planned elections in 2010. He is believed to have pressed these matters on certain government ministers, including the prime minister, General Thein Sein, on the last day of his visit.
He also passed along a letter to Than Shwe in relation to a tentatively planned visit by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon later this year, according to diplomats in Yangon. “The SG has also indicated his intention to return to Myanmar, when conditions are right, to continue his dialogue with the Myanmar leadership,” a senior UN spokesperson, Marie Okabe told journalists earlier this week.
Gambari also met many groups nominated by the regime to brief him and convince the envoy to endorse the regime’s roadmap to democracy, which will culminate with elections in 2010. These groups included small splinter ethnic groups, a break-away faction of former student activists and defectors from the NLD. He also held talks with the government-linked Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which was responsible for the brutal attack on Aung San Suu Kyi five years ago and expected to transform itself into a civilian political party before the planned 2010 elections.
Many of these organizations are likely to stand candidates in the forthcoming elections, according to activists and diplomats in Yangon. Senior junta leaders, including the top general Than Shwe, who are all ensconced in their new capital Naypyidaw some 400 kilometers north of the old capital, meanwhile kept Gambari at arm’s length, as they have done on his last two trips.
Iconic snub
The UN envoy originally planned to meet opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi at the state guesthouse on Wednesday, but she did not show up, according to NLD sources in Yangon. The UN envoy also sent two of his assistants to her residence on Friday morning, but the pro-democracy leader did not respond.
“She’s making a point - that she is no longer willing to be wheeled out like a circus act just so the regime can convey a bogus impression of ‘dialogue’,” according to a Western diplomat based in Yangon.
“Aung San Suu Kyi is refusing to see the UN envoy before he sees a senior representative of the SPDC,” an opposition source close to the detained leader told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. “She feels there is no point in meeting Gambari at the moment, as he has nothing from the generals to report or offer,” he said.
To certain Asian diplomats, though, Aung San Suu Kyi’s actions were an affront. “It’s un-Asian to let the envoy wait in vain for her to show up,” said a Japanese diplomat, who closely follows Myanmar. “It seems unusually rude, to the extent that it gives the impression of being insensitive.”
It will only serve to further undermine Gambari’s credibility and strengthen the regime’s belief that Aung San Suu Kyi is “ill-tempered and uncompromising”, the diplomat added. Indeed the regime made the most of the snub over their tightly controlled media, with one broadcast showing Myanmar government officials outside her personal residence shouting to her through a megaphone: “Mr Gambari wants to meet you.”
The visit represented Gambari’s sixth overall visit and fourth in the aftermath of the regime’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist monk-led street protests last year since replacing the previous UN envoy, Ismail Razali, more than three years ago.
In November 2007, Gambari smuggled out and made public a letter from the opposition leader that appealed to the country’s military leaders to put aside their differences with her and to work together on national reconciliation for the sake of the whole country. The disclosure infuriated the regime, who denounced her and Gambari in the state media for weeks afterwards.
With Gambari’s failure, Asian countries are expected to play a bigger future role in seeking to influence the intransigent regime. The international community, especially China, had exerted substantial pressure on the junta behind the scenes to allow the UN envoy to visit the country. He originally wanted to return to Myanmar before the constitution referendum held in May despite the devastation caused by the Cyclone Nargis the week before the poll was scheduled.
In recent months Indonesia has also been trying to develop an international consensus on Myanmar at several high-level but informal meetings at the UN in New York. Now a member of the UN Security Council and an important ASEAN member, the Indonesians have taken a leading role in trying to find news ways of exerting international influence on Myanmar. Jakarta is also working closely with China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and India to convince the junta they must make their democratic roadmap credible to the international community.
“Myanmar claims to have a new constitution and these elections [planned for 2010] will be multi-party elections, but what is important for us at ASEAN is to ensure that a more credible process is taking place,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told journalists in Jakarta earlier this week. Recently taking over as ASEAN’s chair for the next 18 months, Thailand, a junta ally, will also look for ways to nudge the junta.
Thailand’s new Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag has just completed a two-day visit to Myanmar. There is no doubt that Myanmar’s roadmap featured prominently during his talks with the regime. It is presumed he was given a warmer reception and more candid briefing than Gambari received during his more high-profile, and most likely, last visit.
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
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