Observers inside and outside Burma have had mixed reactions about the success or failure of UN Special Envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari’s second trip to the country since the junta’s crackdown on mass protests in September.
Perhaps, the most optimistic assessment came from Aung San Suu Kyi, who met separately on Friday with junta liaison officer Aung Kyi as well as with top members of her political party, the National League for Democracy.
She told her colleagues that she believed the military authorities now have the will to take part in national reconciliation, a NLD spokesman, Nyan Win, told The Associated Press.
However, many observers remain skeptical about the junta’s intentions.
Win Min, a lecturer at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand, said the politics of the talks are complicated, and there are mixed massages in Gambari’s trip.
“I see good and bad in the results of Mr Gambari’s trip,“he said.”A good thing is that he was invited back to Burma in the next few weeks, and he passed on Aung San Suu Kyi’s message and Suu Kyi could meet with her party as well as Aung Kyi.”
But Win Min also noted that Gambari did not meet with Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Also, the junta’s spokesperson, Kyaw Hsan, was critical of the UN special envoy during the trip, and the junta rejected Gambari’s proposal for three-party talks involving the junta, Suu Kyi and opposition parties.
“The junta’s current activities show the generals only react to international pressure rather than take real steps toward a genuine dialogue on national reconciliation," he said.
Soe Tun of the 88 Generation Students group said the UN envoy did not really achieve his goals.
“We expected that Gambari could achieve a dialogue between Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi this time,“he said.”But it did not happen. Even Gambari, the UN special envoy, was scolded by the junta’s information minister, Kyaw Hsan.”
He added that if the junta wants real progress toward national conciliation, Suu Kyi and all other political detainees must be freed, and the junta must stop the ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy activists and monks.
Naing Aung of the Forum for Democracy in Burma said Gambari’s trip was not successful because the junta rejected most of his proposals, including the formation of a committee to fight poverty in Burma.
“The junta said the UN proposal...was unnecessary because Burmese are ’not poor’. It seems the junta is still maintaining its hard-line stand.”
An activist group, the Burma Campaign UK, said in a statement on Thursday that it was disappointed Gambari had failed to achieve a significant breakthrough.
“The dictatorship is still refusing to enter into genuine negotiations, despite a United Nation Security Council statement calling on them to do so,” it said.
Meanwhile Suu Kyi said in her statement via Gambari that in the interest of the nation, she stands ready to cooperate with the junta in order to make the process of dialogue a success.
However, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan later blamed Suu Kyi for the political deadlock and called on her to abandon a confrontational stand.