UN envoy meets with Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi
YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met Saturday with visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, officials said, as the nation's junta rebuffed global pressure to reform its election plans.
Aung San Suu Kyi spoke with Gambari for about one hour and 20 minutes at a military facility near her home, Myanmar officials said.
She was taken to and from the meeting in a convoy that picked her up at her house in Yangon, where the 62-year-old Nobel peace prize winner has spent 12 of the last 18 years under arrest.
Officials declined to provide any information about their talks. Normally Gambari only discusses his meetings after leaving the country.
The UN envoy earlier held talks with top officials from her National League for Democracy (NLD) and later met with officials from a pro-junta party and a civil group set up by the regime known as the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA).
NLD leaders dodged reporters after their talks with Gambari, which came one day after the junta's blunt refusal to give the NLD a role in a constitutional referendum planned in May and multi-party 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 recognised 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 by criminalising public speeches and leaflets about the vote.
Western countries have decried Myanmar's vote plans for failing to include the NLD, and Gambari arrived here Thursday on a mission to press the regime to open up the process.
Analysts also warn the junta could tighten its grip on power by turning the USDA into a political party ahead of the 2010 elections. The organisation claims to have more than 20 million members out of the country's 54 million people.
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 Gambari of bias in favour of Aung San Suu Kyi, blasting him for releasing a letter from her after his last visit here 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 criticising 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.
He 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 it 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 junta's violent crackdown in September on anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks, which left at least 31 dead, according to the United Nations.
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 here, and he has given no sign that he plans to meet with the envoy during his current visit.
