Gambari hopes to meet junta leaders
The Associated Press / October 01, 2007

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari hoped to meet Myanmar's top two military leaders on Monday to persuade them to ease a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The main city of Yangon has been flooded with troops during Gambari'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 August 19 when the government sharply raised fuel prices, then mushroomed into the junta's largest challenge in decades when Myanmar'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 General Than Shwe, or his deputy, General Maung Aye.

He returned to Myanmar's isolated capital of Naypyitaw for a second time in hopes of meeting with the junta's two top leaders on Monday.

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 on Sunday 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 symbolize 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.

Blaming outsiders

On Monday, 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 endeavors 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 Center in Yangon, the paper said, adding that ''weapons'' seized included five slingshots and marbles, a pair of scissors and one sharp iron rod.

The crackdown in Myanmar 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.

ASEAN expresses revulsion

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-member bloc, which includes Myanmar, wrote a letter to Than Shwe on Monday 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 toward national reconciliation and to help Gambari ''try to find a way forward.''

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

But China, India and Russia, dazzled by Myanmar'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 Myanmar, where public Internet access has been cut and phone service is sporadic.

A video shot Sunday by a dissident group, Democratic Voice of Burma, showed a monk, covered in bruises, floating face down in a Yangon 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 on Sunday in the town of Taunggok.

They were later forced to disperse.