Gambari to Visit Burma Thursday

The UN’s special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, will arrive on a crucial mission in Burma on March 6, the United Nations announced Monday.

On his third trip to Burma since a popular uprising against the military junta last September, Gambari is scheduled to meet top leaders of the regime and pro-democracy leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi. His previous two trips were in September and November of last year.

Gambari, who returned to New York on Friday after a 10-day trip to key Asian nations, including China and Japan, briefed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday. Details of the meeting were not available.

The March 6 visit will give Gambari his first chance to meet top officials of the military junta since it announced last month that it plans to hold a referendum on a draft constitution in May and general elections in 2010.

Pro-democracy groups, including the National League for Democracy (NLD), and several leading countries—the US, Britain and France, in particular—have condemned the junta plans to bar Aung San Suu Kyi from standing in the 2010 election.

In a toned-down statement, the United Nations called for an all-inclusive and transparent process. It added that the credibility of the election would depend on Suu Kyi’s ability to participate. During his recent travels to Asian countries, Gambari was quoted as saying that this would be one of the key issues under discussion when he meets junta leaders in Burma later this week.

Details of Gambari’s trip to Burma were not announced.

“The special adviser of the secretary-general, Ibrahim Gambari, has been invited to travel to Myanmar by its government and will depart tomorrow,” Michèle Montas, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

“Gambari will arrive in Myanmar on March 6 and hopes to stay as long as necessary and to consult with a broad range of representatives of Myanmar society, including all the groups which he was not able to see during his last visit,” Montas said.

It is understood that Gambari has only been given a three-day visa, despite the fact that the UN wants him to stay in the country for a longer duration. Negotiations to extend the visa are still going on. It took diplomatic efforts by several countries to get the current visa.

Gambari was initially scheduled to go in January, but that trip was postponed to February. In February, the junta informed the UN that it would not like to meet the special envoy until April. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was quick to say that this was not acceptable. The negotiations that followed facilitated Gambari’s return to Burma in the first week of March.

On his return from Burma, Gambari is expected to brief the 15-member UN Security Council at a special meeting on Burma.

Presidency of the powerful Security Council for the month of March is held by Russia, a key supporter of the military junta along with China.

As such, observers feel it would be a bit difficult for the pro-democracy supporters inside the Security Council—France, Britain and the US—to push for any measure against the Burmese military junta or for a presidential statement on this issue.