Western governments lashed out at the extension of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, but the outrage at Burma’s generals was tempered by concern over disrupting aid flows to desperate cyclone victims. Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western aid after Cyclone Nargis, but this cut no ice with the junta regarding the opposition leader.
Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was taken to a state guest house in the former capital on Monday for her second meeting in two days with visiting United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari. UN officials gave no details of Gambari’s planned discussions with the Nobel laureate.
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/ 30 November 2007
The Burma junta has shut down a Rangoon monastery which served as a hospice for HIV/Aids patients and expelled its monks, an opposition lawyer said on Friday. United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari criticised the closure of the monastery, that was used as a hospice for for people living with HIV/Aids.
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/ 10 November 2007
Detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi received rare front-page billing on Saturday in Burma’s state-controlled press, which said the ruling junta is ”putting energy” into democratic reforms demanded by the international community. Suu Kyi was allowed to meet leaders of her opposition party on Friday.
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/ 3 November 2007
The United Nations’s special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, was expected in Rangoon on Saturday for talks with the country’s ruling generals amid a row over the threatened expulsion of another diplomat. Gambari’s visit comes amid conflicting signals from the junta over its willingness to reform, in the wake of street protests against the ruling regime.
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/ 31 October 2007
Buddhist monks in Burma staged a protest march on Wednesday, their first since soldiers crushed a pro-democracy uprising a month ago, as United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared for a return visit. Gambari, who first visited shortly after the army crackdown, would arrive on November 3.
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/ 25 October 2007
Burma’s detained democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is to hold surprise talks with a minister from the ruling junta today, according to sources in Burma. Residents in Rangoon, where Aung San Suu Kyi is being held under house arrest, told the Associated Press that she had left her home to meet officials.
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/ 24 October 2007
Australia slapped financial sanctions on Burma’s generals and their families on Wednesday as supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 12 years in captivity with protests in 12 cities. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the measures would hit 418 people, including leader Senior General Than Shwe.
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/ 18 October 2007
Burma’s ruling junta on Thursday night announced the formation of a Constitution Drafting Commission, another step in the government’s ”road map” to democracy that is supposed to lead to free elections some time in the future. The move came after the junta brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations last month.
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/ 17 October 2007
Burma’s ruling junta blamed Buddhist monks Wednesday for last month’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests, as it admitted nearly 3 000 people had been detained over the rallies. Troops and police quelled the protests in late September, leaving at least 13 dead and drawing international condemnation.
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/ 15 October 2007
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Burma on Monday to stop arresting dissidents and Thailand proposed a regional forum including China and India to nudge the reclusive military junta towards democratic reform. Gambari said the continued arrests and intimidation of activists were ”extremely disturbing”.
The Burma junta reduced security in Yangon sharply on Sunday, apparently confident it would face no further mass protests against military rule, but the streets remained unusually quiet and arrests continued. The few people on the streets said they were still fearful and the internet remained cut off.
Key United Nations powers stepped up calls for Burma to release political prisoners after an envoy to the repressive state warned of ”serious international repercussions” from the bloody turmoil there. The United States signalled on Friday it may push for UN sanctions if the ruling junta kept up a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party dismissed the Burma junta’s offer of talks as surreal on Friday as a United Nations envoy warned of ”serious international consequences” from the junta’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters.
Despite gradually easing its iron grip on Burma’s main city on Thursday, the junta continued to round up scores of people and grill hundreds more arrested during last week’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy marches. One freed monk said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity.
Burma’s military regime kept up the pressure on its people on Wednesday after last week’s bloody crackdown on protesters as the European Union agreed in principle to punish the junta with sanctions. Troops who last week killed at least 13 and arrested over 1 000 people continued overnight arrests and mounted patrols to strike terror into the population.
Burma’s junta arrested more people under the cover of darkness on Wednesday despite a crescendo of international outrage during a keenly watched United Nations mission to bring an end to a bloody crackdown on protests. At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Rangoon.
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Burma junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday at the end of four-day mission to halt a bloody crackdown on the biggest democracy protests in 20 years. There was no word on whether Gambari’s single meeting with Than Shwe had persuaded him to relax his iron grip.
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari may not have met Burma junta supremo Than Shwe at the weekend, but the fact he is still in the country suggests his mission is far from failed. The schedule for Gambari’s mission was threadbare — 24 hours and one meeting with Than Shwe.
The shutdown of communications in Burma has slowed information to the outside world to a trickle, with the number of reports to one exile group cut by half and websites with the .mm Burma suffix being unavailable, campaigners said on Sunday.
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/ 29 September 2007
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari flew to Burma on Saturday carrying worldwide hopes he can persuade its ruling generals to use negotiations instead of guns to end mass protests against 45 years of military rule. ”He’s the best hope we have. He is trusted on both sides,” Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said.
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/ 28 September 2007
Burmese troops pounded dissenters on Friday by swiftly breaking up street gatherings, occupying key Buddhist monasteries and cutting public internet access. The moves raised concerns that a crackdown on civilians that has killed at least 10 people was set to intensify.
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/ 28 September 2007
Fuelled by ”revulsion” at Burma’s violent crackdown on popular protests against military rule, South-east Asia rounded on the generals on Friday and critics planned demonstrations at embassies across the region. Burma state media said nine people were killed when soldiers fired on crowds in Yangon on Thursday.
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/ 27 September 2007
Troops cleared protesters from the streets of central Yangon on Thursday, giving them 10 minutes to leave or be shot as the Burma junta intensified a two-day crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years. At least nine people were killed, state television said, on a day when far fewer protesters took to the streets after soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night.
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/ 27 September 2007
Burma riot police charged a crowd of more than 1 000 protesters after they pelted soldiers with rocks and water bottles in central Yangon on Thursday and at least one person collapsed as shots were fired, witnesses said. One man was on the ground, unconscious, but it was not clear whether he was alive or dead.
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/ 27 September 2007
Burma’s generals launched pre-dawn raids on rebellious monasteries on Thursday in their crackdown on the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years, defying desperate international calls for restraint. It was unusually quiet on the streets of Yangon, where troops killed an estimated 3 000 people in the ruthless suppression of a 1988 uprising.
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/ 25 September 2007
Hundreds of monks marched towards central Yangon on Tuesday in defiance of a threat by Burma’s ruling generals to send soldiers in to end the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years. About 2 000 monks and ordinary people marched out of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the former Burma’s holiest shrine and the symbolic heart of a growing campaign against 45 years of unbroken military rule.
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/ 21 September 2007
At least 3 000 people led by Buddhist monks marched along flooded streets in Yangon on Friday, piling pressure on Burma’s ruling junta in the most sustained challenge to its rule in nearly 20 years. About 1 500 cinnamon-robed monks marched barefoot through the city on Friday, attracting an equal number of followers.