UN envoy meets junta leader in Burma

A United Nations envoy met Burma’s military leader today as the junta’s foreign minister defended a deadly crackdown on democracy protesters that provoked global revulsion.

Ibrahim Gambari, the UN’s special envoy to the country, also known as Myanmar, met Senior General Than Shwe in the junta’s remote new capital, Naypyitaw, said a foreign diplomat. No details of the meeting were available.

Security forces scaled down their presence in Rangoon, the country’s main city, which remained quiet after troops and police brutally quelled the mass protests fronted by Buddhist monks last week.

Dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were murdered, compared with the regime’s report of 10 deaths, and 6,000 detained.

“Normalcy has now returned in Myanmar,” foreign minister Nyan Win told the United Nations General Assembly in New York, adding that security forces acted with restraint for a month but had to “take action to restore the situation”.

Nyan Win made no reference to the deaths. Instead, he blamed foreign elements for the violence.

“Recent events make clear that there are elements within and outside the country who wish to derail the ongoing process (towards democracy) so that they can take advantage of the chaos that would follow,” Nyan Win said.

“They have become more and more emboldened and have stepped up their campaign to confront the government.”

Nyan Win’s comments indicated that the junta would not give up its hardline position and is willing to thumb its nose at international demands to restore democracy and free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Gambari has been in the country since Saturday but Than Shwe, who is notoriously difficult to meet, did not make himself available until today.

The military has ruled Burma since 1962 and the current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a much larger pro-democracy movement in which about 3,000 people are believed to have been killed. The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when Suu Kyi’s party won.

Simmering anger against the junta exploded in mid-August after it raised fuel prices by as much as 500%.