UN envoy to meet junta head for Suu Kyi’s release

A UN envoy visiting Myanmar to secure the release of Aung Saan Suu Kyi will meet the head of the ruling junta today, an aide to the envoy said, in what may be a final bid to see the detained Nobel laureate.

The junta stepped up its criticism of Suu Kyi yesterday, blaming her for a deadly clash between her supporters and those of the junta on May 30 that sparked international concern over whether the pro-democracy leader had been injured.

The aide to United Nations envoy Razali Ismail said the junta's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, was out of Yangon but was expected back in time for the planned meeting today.

UN sources in New York said Razali’s orders from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan were to meet Suu Kyi and leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) and said he would cut short his mission and leave Myanmar if these requests were denied.

Razali met ethnic minority leaders yesterday. These leaders also said the veteran Malaysian diplomat expected to meet a top leader of the junta this morning, at which time he would find out whether he would be allowed to see Suu Kyi.

“He doesn’t seem to have lost his optimism yet,” Khun Tun Oo, the chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, said after he met Razali.

Military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, the third-ranked general in Myanmar’s leadership, was quoted by state media yesterday blaming the NLD for the violence, which erupted as Suu Kyi toured a provincial town in the north.

“The untoward events occurred because some people were misled into following a misinterpretation of democracy,” Khin Nyunt was quoted as telling trainee teachers in a speech on Saturday.

“These events will serve as lessons.”