United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon begins a high-risk trip to Burma on Friday, where he will press the military junta to release all their political prisoners and prepare for credible elections next year.
The stakes are high for Ban and the risk of failure great. Halfway through a five-year term at the helm of the UN, Ban has faced a wave of criticism recently from detractors who say his low-key approach to the job does not work. He is eager to prove them wrong, UN diplomats say.
Ban is aware that the timing of his trip to the former Burma is far from ideal, as he made clear when he spoke to reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
He said he understood the concerns about the timing of his visit, which begins on the day the widely criticised trial of Burma’s opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is set to resume.
”I will try to use this visit as an opportunity to raise in the strongest possible terms and convey the concerns of international community … to the highest authorities of the [Burma] government,” Ban said.
Human rights groups are watching Ban’s moves closely. According to several UN diplomats, one influential group, New York-based Human Rights Watch, advised Ban not to accept the junta’s invitation for a July 3 and 4 visit, warning him that it could be used for propaganda purposes.
But Ban, the diplomats said, decided to go anyway, hoping his presence and knack for closed-door, quiet diplomacy would persuade the generals to compromise, as they did last spring when Ban convinced them to lift restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis.
Analysts say Ban may have been given some indication by the generals, or by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari after his trip last week, that his visit can bring some kind of positive result.
Suu Kyi on trial
UN diplomats acknowledge that the probability of failure is high. But members of the UN Security Council are backing Ban’s visit, some of them reluctantly. Given China’s reluctance to back UN sanctions, a visit by the secretary-general is the only card they have to play in Burma at the moment.
Ban said he has three goals for his visit — to demand the release of more than 2, 00 political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, the resumption of dialogue between the government and opposition, and the need to create conditions conducive to credible elections next year.
He plans to meet with Senior General Than Shwe in the country’s new capital, Naypyidaw, on Friday, UN officials said. It was not yet clear if he would be able to meet with Suu Kyi, who has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention, mostly under house arrest at her lakeside home in Rangoon.
The Nobel laureate (64) was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest last month by allowing an American intruder to stay at her home, which prosecutors say breached a security law designed to thwart ”subversive elements”.
However, critics say the charges are trumped up and the trial is an attempt to keep Suu Kyi out of multi-party elections next year, which are expected to entrench nearly half a century of army rule.
Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying that Ban ”should not accept the return of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest or vague statements about political reform as signs of a successful visit”.
”There is a real danger that Burma’s generals will try to use Ban’s visit to legitimise the 2010 elections,” Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said.
”If no commitments for reform are made, Ban should clearly and publicly state that a process that mocks the very idea of fundamental freedoms and democracy will have no legitimacy.” — Reuters