UN envoy tight-lipped over Burma junta meeting

A United Nations envoy remained tight-lipped today about his meetings with Burma’s junta chief and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in a highly-watched mission that followed the regime’s deadly crackdown on democracy protesters.

An eerie quiet prevailed in Rangoon, Burma’s biggest city, where the junta has continued its scare tactics.

Military vehicles patrolled the streets overnight blaring warnings from loudspeakers that soldiers were searching for protesters, saying: “We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!”

Ibrahim Gambari was in Singapore today after his four-day trip to Burma. He and the junta’s reclusive leader Senior General Than Shwe sat in the same room together yesterday for more than an hour in the remote capital of Naypyitaw.

But neither side issued any comment that could satisfy the world’s hopes for a halt to the junta’s harsh crackdown on protesters.

After meeting the generals, Gambari flew to Rangoon to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Nobel laureate who has come to symbolise the yearning for democracy in Burma.

It was his second meeting in three days with Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

The United Nations released photos of a grim-faced Gambari and an equally sombre Suu Kyi shaking hands at Burma’s State Guest House.

Today, Gambari is meeting Singaporean prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose country currently chairs the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has expressed revulsion at the junta’s violent suppression of demonstrators.

On his way to the meeting, Gambari avoided reporters by leaving his Singapore hotel through the basement.

Simmering anger against the junta’s 45-year rule exploded in mid-August after it upped fuel prices by as much as 500%, a crushing burden in the impoverished nation.

The marches soon ballooned into mass pro-democracy demonstrations led by the nation’s revered Buddhist monks.

While the military government has said only 10 people were killed, dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were killed and 6,000 detained in the crackdown.

Foreign governments have urged the junta to free Suu Kyi as well as the detainees, who include thousands of Buddhist monks.

Gambari is expected to brief UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council on Friday.

In Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday, the UN Human Rights Council condemned the military’s crackdown on opposition protests and urged an immediate investigation of the situation.

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 at least 3,000 people were killed.

The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when Suu Kyi’s party won.

At a shrine in Rangoon, Buddhist faithful prayed and touched their foreheads on the ground yesterday.

Two dozen soldiers patrolled outside but there were no barricades along the street and stores were open even in the late afternoon.

“I don’t believe the protests have been totally crushed,” said Kin, a 29-year-old language teacher in Rangoon whose father and brother joined the 1988 protests.

“There is hope but we fear to hope,” she said.

“We still dream of rearing our children in a country where everybody would have equal chances at opportunities ... I hope Gambari and the ASEAN can help us.”