UN regrets slow progress over Burma democracy talks

The UN Security Council today expressed regret at Burma’s slow progress in opening talks with the pro-democracy opposition.

The council “underscored the importance of making further progress” on the objectives it set out in an October 11 statement, which include protecting human rights and releasing all political prisoners and detainees.

The UN also called for the early return of UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari to help promote national reconciliation and the restoration of democracy.

“An early visit to Burma by Mr Gambari could help facilitate this,” it said.

Mr Gambari told reporters after meeting the council that he asked to go to Burma later this month, but the country’s military rulers sent word “that it’s not convenient and they will prefer mid-April.”

He said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the government “that’s not acceptable, and I agree, so we are in the process of negotiating an early, rather than a later, return to Burma.”

Burma’s junta has been strongly criticised for sending troops to quash peaceful protests against a fuel price hike, initially led by students and then by Buddhist monks, in late September.

The government said 10 people were killed, but diplomats and dissidents say the death toll was much higher. Thousands of monks and civilians were arrested.

The Security Council reiterated its support for Mr Gambari’s efforts and for the objectives in its October 11 statement, which strongly deplored the government’s crackdown and called for a “genuine dialogue” between the junta and the pro-democracy opposition.

Council members “regretted the slow rate of progress so far towards meeting those objectives,” the council statement said.

Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers said “it’s important that the council sets out that we can’t go back to the situation before the demonstrations of last September and the brutal repression of the authorities.”

“The government in Burma needs to respond to the concerns of the international community as set out” in the October 11 statement, he said.

Burma’s junta took power in 1988 after crushing the democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Ms Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide election victory. Since then, Ms Suu Kyi has been in and out of detention, kept in near-solitary confinement at her home.