By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Aug 25 2008 (IPS)

A United Nations-led effort to push political reform in military-ruled Burma plunged to a humiliating low on the weekend, raising questions about the effectiveness of the world body’s special envoy to the country, Ibrahim Gambari.

Monks queue up to receive alms in Mandalay. Credit: Mizzima News

Deprived, as a result, was the photo opportunity that Gambari had used after his three previous visits to Burma, over the past year, to give the impression that he was making headway with Suu Kyi in paving the road for political reform. The images of the Nigerian diplomat posing with the 63-year-old Suu Kyi, who has spent over 13 of the past 18 years under house arrest, suggested she had confidence in the U.N.

But a scene outside the Rangoon home of Suu Kyi on Friday morning confirmed that Gambari’s luck had run out. The leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party refused to open the gates of her rambling colonial mansion to two of Gambari’s representatives who had come to invite her for a meeting, after she had turned down an invitation at a state guest house 48 hours before.

‘’On Friday morning, two of Gambari aides were seen by neighbours outside the gate of Suu Kyi’s residence, shouting Gambari’s name. They left when nobody came out to meet them,’’ reported ‘The Irrawaddy’, a current affairs magazine run by Burmese journalists in exile, quoting the Associated Press news agency.

Gambari also left the South-east Asian nation without another possible photograph that may have suggested progress.

‘’Mr. Gambari had always exploited the photo opportunity he had with Daw Suu Kyi to give the impression that the political dialogue process that he was leading for the U.N. was working,’’ says Zin Linn, a spokesman for the National Coalition Government for the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the democratically elected Burmese government forced into exile by the junta.

‘’But this time there was no photo. She has sent a strong message to the Burmese people by refusing to meet Mr. Gambari,’’ Zin Linn explained in an interview. ‘’She wants the people to know that they cannot rely on the U.N. to bring results. They have to stand up on their own feet.’’

Other Burma watchers are as scathing. ‘’Unlike Gambari, Aung San Suu Kyi refuses to be a pawn in the junta’s game,’’ says Debbie Stothard of ALTSEAN, a regional body campaigning for human rights in Burma. ‘’This confirms that she has lost confidence in Gambari. She has said so through the only peaceful form of resistance available to her.’’

Gambari’s failure should ‘’be a wakeup call to the Security Council’s members that they can no longer be conned by the junta,’’ Stothard told IPS. ‘’Most of the key decisions makers at the U.N. used Gambari’s shuttle diplomacy as an excuse not to act on Burma. But nothing has moved, and now there is little left to hope for.’’

The world body, however, had different hopes when it sent Gambari to Burma last year. That followed the international outrage at the junta’s harsh crackdown of peaceful street demonstrations, led by tens of thousands of Buddhist monks, on the streets of Rangoon last September. It was Gambari’s third visit as a special political envoy.

The initial visit appeared to have made some headway, since Gambari met Than Shwe and Suu Kyi and succeeded in getting the junta to appoint a minister to be a liaison officer to conduct talks with Suu Kyi. That U.N. mission fed a view that the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is officially known, was receptive to some change and genuine reform.

But as 2007 drew to a close, the junta began to flex its political muscle and reneged on some of the pledges made to the U.N. envoy as part of the ‘’roadmap’’ toward democracy. The junta’s old language that it would stick to its seven-point plan to impose a ‘’discipline-flourishing’’ democracy – rather than an open and inclusive one that was part of the reform agenda – gained ground.

By mid-March, when Gambari returned to Burma for his third visit, he was given a hostile reception by the junta. The information minister, Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan, told the envoy that the SPDC would not accommodate a U.N. request to amend the country’s draft constitution, enabling legitimate political participation by the opposition, including Suu Kyi.

The SPDC stood firm in May, pushing ahead with a referendum fraught with abuse and vote rigging to approve the new constitution, a week after Burma was devastated by powerful Cyclone Nargis which killed tens of thousands. It was a key step in the junta’s march toward achieving political legitimacy at the 2010 general elections.

But for the Burmese opposition, the events in May only held out the possibility of further oppression in a country that has been under the grip of the military since March 1962. It has also crushed the hopes of opposition leaders who won seats at the 1990 parliamentary elections – in which the NLD won a thumping majority that the junta refused to recognise.

‘’Mr. Gambari has let the junta get its way by supporting their agenda [rather] than offering a political roadmap of his own,’’ says Zin Linn of the NCGUB. ‘’We are not surprised by his failure.’’

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