/ 9 October 2007

Burma names trusted fixer as Suu Kyi go-between

The appointment by Burma’s junta of one of its most trusted troubleshooters as a go-between for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi suggests the generals may be serious about negotiations, analysts said on Tuesday.

Although officially only a Deputy Labour Minister, Aung Kyi, whose appointment as liaison officer to Suu Kyi was announced on Monday night, is a major player within the junta and will act as more than an errand boy, those who know him say.

”He’s serious, he’s senior and he’s been sent in to difficult situations before to resolve them and troubleshoot,” a former Rangoon-based official of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said.

”He’s not a stonewaller. He’s someone who’s sent in to fix problems, and he seems like a very good choice if you do want to have a credible dialogue,” said the ILO official, who dealt with Aung Kyi directly in a bid to curb the use of forced labour.

After the last month’s huge anti-junta protests, Senior General Than Shwe — whose personal loathing of Suu Kyi is well known — offered direct talks if she abandoned ”confrontation” and support for sanctions and ”utter devastation”.

There has been no reaction from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) to Aung Kyi’s appointment, which coincides with unprecedented international pressure on the generals after their bloody crackdown on the monk-led demonstrations.

Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate whose party won a 1990 election landslide only to be denied power by the army, has had ”liaison officers” before during her long periods of detention, now totalling nearly 12 of the last 18 years.

Given the frequency with which those hoping for change in Burma have been disappointed, other analysts cautioned against over-optimism. ”It’s too early to assess this gambit by the regime,” said a retired professor in Rangoon, who asked not to be named. ”It comes at a time of mounting pressure from the international community. We need to wait for further movement.” – Reuters