UN envoy hoping to meet Burma military

A UN envoy is hoping to meet Burma's top two military leaders today to persuade them to ease a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

It comes a day after the junta unexpectedly allowed Ibrahim Gambari to meet detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Authorities, meanwhile, said foreign governments were partly to blame for the crisis that has engulfed the country.

The main city of Rangoon has been flooded with troops during the UN special envoy's visit, with about 20,000 soldiers and police cruising around in trucks and deployed on street corners, ensuring that all but a few die-hard demonstrators stayed indoors, an Asian diplomat said.

Hundreds of people have been arrested, further weakening the flagging uprising against 45 years of military dictatorship.

The protests began on August 19 when the government sharply raised fuel prices, then mushroomed into the junta's largest challenge in decades when Burma's revered monks took a leading role.

Gambari arrived on Saturday to try to persuade the notoriously unyielding military junta to halt its harsh crackdown on pro-democracy advocates.

Soldiers have shot and killed at least 10 people - though diplomats and dissidents say the number is likely higher - ransacked Buddhist monasteries, beaten monks and arrested an estimated 1,000 people in the last week.

The UN envoy spent the weekend in talks and transit, pressing ahead with shuttle diplomacy even after his first meeting with the junta did not include its leader, Senior Gen Than Shwe, or his deputy, Gen Maung Aye.

He returned to Burma's isolated capital of Naypyitaw for a second time in the hope of meeting with the junta's two top leaders today.

Gambari "looks forward to meeting ... Than Shwe" before he leaves the region, the UN said in a statement.

The junta, which has rebuffed scores of previous UN attempts at promoting democracy, did not comment.

Gambari's hour-long talk with Suu Kyi yesterday was somewhat unexpected - he did not know before he arrived if he would be allowed to meet the 1991 Nobel Peace prize winner who has come to symbolise the struggle for democracy in Myanmar.

She has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

UN officials would not comment on speculation that he could be carrying a letter from Suu Kyi to the junta when he returned to Naypyitaw to try to meet Than Shwe.

Suu Kyi' National League for Democracy party said it was not optimistic Gambari's visit would have much impact on the junta. The party's secretary U Lwin told Radio Free Asia that he only sees Gambari as a "facilitator" who can bring messages back and forth but doesn't have the authority to reach a lasting agreement.

Today, the official press said outsiders were partly to blame for the current crisis.

"Internal and external destructionists are applying various means to destroy those constructive endeavours by the government and the people and to cause unrest and instability," the New Light of Myanmar said.

It said 11 people were arrested over the weekend in two separate demonstrations, several of them university students. Some were carrying identification cards for studying English at the US Embassy's American Centre in Rangoon, the paper said, adding that "weapons" seized included five slingshots and marbles, a pair of scissors and one sharp iron rod.

The crackdown in Burma has riveted the globe, with foreign governments from Asia, to North America to Europe calling on the junta to find a peaceful end to the crisis.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-member bloc which includes Burma, wrote a letter to Than Shwe today expressing "revulsion" at the violent repression of demonstrators.

"The confrontation that is unfolding in Myanmar will have serious implications not just for Myanmar itself, but also for ASEAN and the whole region," wrote Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose country currently chairs the regional grouping.

He urged the military rulers to work towards national reconciliation and to help Gambari "try to find a way forward".

Many see China, Burma's biggest trading partner, as the most likely outside catalyst for change.

But China, India and Russia, dazzled by Burma's bountiful oil and gas resources, do not seem prepared to go beyond words in dealing with the junta.

Images of violence continued to leak out of Burma, where public internet access has been cut and phone service is sporadic.

A video shot yesterday by a dissident group, Democratic Voice of Burma, showed a monk, covered in bruises, floating face down in a Rangoon river.

It was not clear how long the body had been there. In the western state of Rakhine, four monks and over 800 civilians held a protest yesterday in the town of Taunggok. They were later forced to disperse.

The military rulers have also sought to limit news coming out of Burma, with public internet access restricted and mobile phone service sporadic.

A Japanese video journalist was killed when soldiers fired into a crowd of protesters and at least four others have been arrested, according to two media groups.

"The toll from the media's attempts to cover the pro-democracy demonstrations mounts by the day," Reporters Without Borders and Burma Media Association wrote in a statement.