UN special envoy meets Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma

Gambari flew to Rangoon from Naypyidaw, the new capital, where he has been since Saturday on a mission to hasten the country's national reconciliation process in the aftermath of a brutal crackdown on monk-led protests on September 26-27 that left 10 people dead according to official figures. Others say the death-toll was closer to 200.

 He met with Suu Kyi at 3:05 pm Thursday at Sein Le Kan Tha government guest house. It was Gambari's fifth meeting with the Nobel peace prize laureate, who has been kept under house arrest since May 2003. 

   Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) Party, has been imprisoned in her Rangoon home for 12 of the past 18 years by Burma's military.         Prior to his meeting with Suu Kyi, Gambari was briefed by senior members of the NLD, in Naypyidaw, 350 kilometres north of Rangoon, and met with leaders of the pro-junta National Unity Party (NUP).

 During his six-day stay in Burma, Gambari has met only two senior members of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the ruling junta styles itself.

 On Tuesday he met with Prime Minister General Thein Sein and the newly appointed SPDC First-Secretary Lieutenant-General Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo.      Gambari delivered a letter from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Thein Sein to pass on to Than Shwe.         

   The special envoy is scheduled to fly to Singapore Thursday evening and return to UN headquarters on Monday when he will need to provide a progress report on his Burma mission.     

   Gambari was sent to Burma on Ban's instructions to seek democratic reform, engage in dialogue with detained political opposition leader Suu Kyi and junta chief Than Shwe, and to seek the release of political prisoners and detained pro-democracy marchers.

 At UN headquarters in New York, Ban told reporters Tuesday: "I am concerned at this time about the lack of progress. He has not been able to meet with Senior General Than Shwe."

   There is great skepticism in Burma about the junta's desire to open a political dialogue with the opposition. Burma has been under military rule for the past 45 years.

 Under General Ne Win, who seized power with a coup in 1962, the country was virtually closed to the outside world for two decades as it pursued its disastrous "Burmese Way to Socialism."

   In 1988, after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations that left an estimated 3,000 dead, the army discarded its socialist ideology but has maintained its wariness about the international community, especially Western democracies.

 Efforts by the UN to pressure the regime in the aftermath of yet another crackdown on its own people last September have thus far borne few results, observers said.//dpa