NLD Concerned over Petrie Expulsion

The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy is concerned that the Burmese military government’s expulsion of the top UN official in the country could seriously impact the political process mediated by the governing world body, said an NLD spokesperson.

Charles Petrie

Nyan Win, a spokesperson for the NLD, told The Irrawaddy on Sunday that the junta’s decision to throw the UN Resident Coordinator in Burma, Charles Petrie, out of the country showed the regime is still intolerant of criticism.

“He wrote about the worsening economic situation, not politics,” said Nyan Win. “But it is a sensitive issue for them [the generals] because it is related to mismanagement, which is related to misruling—it is also political.”

He said that the meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta’s liaison officer, Aung Kyi, was just that—a meeting, not dialogue. “A real dialogue means Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Snr-Gen Than Shwe meeting and talking about the country,” said Nyan Win.

The NLD spokesperson said that he did not know yet when or whether the UN Special Envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, would meet the NLD because the junta’s home ministry had not yet made any mention of the meeting with the UN envoy.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Gambari visited the new capital, Naypyidaw, on Sunday in a quest to initiate dialogue between the ruling military junta and pro-democracy opponents for Burma’s national reconciliation.

Gambari arrived Saturday for his second visit since the junta violently suppressed anti-government demonstrations in September. The day before his arrival in Rangoon—the isolated Southeast Asian nation's largest city—the junta announced it planned to expel the top UN diplomat in the country, adding an extra hurdle to the envoy's already difficult mission.

Expected to be high on Gambari's agenda is the junta's accusation that UN Resident Coordinator Charles Petrie went beyond his duties by criticizing the generals’ failure to meet the economic and humanitarian needs of its people and by saying this was the cause of September's mass pro-democracy protests, according to The Associated Press.

The UN said in a statement that Gambari met with Petrie soon after Gambari’s arrival and that he would “stay in Myanmar as long as necessary to accomplish his mission.”

Gambari carried a message of support for Petrie from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as a letter for junta head Snr-Gen Than Shwe, said the statement.