Gambari to Meet UN Chief, Brief Security Council

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that his special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, had not been able to achieve as much as he had hoped during his recent trip to Burma. Still, he said, the United Nations would continue to press the military junta to move towards democratization.
Gambari, who left Burma Monday following a five-day trip to the country, will meet the secretary general in Dakar, capital of the African nation of Senegal, later this week. Ban will be attending the 11th summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The secretary general said Gambari has briefed him in detail on his trip to Burma. “Of course, he was not able to meet with Snr-Gen Than Shwe, but he has met many senior people, even including the constitution- drafting and review committee members. That was unusual,” Ban told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York.

Ban, who was addressing the media on the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, was specifically asked how disappointed he was, as Gambari was unable to get an agreement from the military junta for UN monitoring of elections in Burma, or for any amendment to the constitution that would allow Aung San Suu Kyi to run for office.

“There was some progress, but we were not able to achieve as much as we had hoped. This is an ongoing effort. But I will continue to press this issue so that Myanmar will meet the expectations of the international community towards democratization,” Ban said.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said reports coming from Burma were not encouraging and he was looking forward to hearing Gambari’s briefing to the Security Council.

“It’s not encouraging based on what we saw and we want to hear from him—we look forward to him reporting to the (Security) Council very quickly after he returns to New York and for the Council to deliberate on what needs to happen to incentivize the military regime to cooperate with the mission the good office of the secretary-general’ s advisor,” Khalilzad told reporters at the UN.

Given that Gambari will be briefing Ban at Dakar later this week and is expected to return to New York over the weekend, his briefing to the Security Council, if any, will be held early next week at the earliest.