Yangon - Myanmar's junta on Saturday snubbed United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's requests to free opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, or even to visit the Nobel peace laureate, who is
currently in a Yangon jail, sources said.
Ban arrived in Yangon midday Saturday from Naypyitaw, Myanmar's
military headquarters, 350 kilometres north of Yangon, where the UN
chief met twice with junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe.
Ban asked Than Shwe to free Suu Kyi, 64, and some 2,100 other
political prisoners prior to a planned general election next year. He
also requested permission to see Suu Kyi, who currently resides in
Yangon's notorious Insein Prison.
He was refused both requests, government officials confirmed.
'There will be no meeting between Ban and Suu Kyi,' said a
Yangon-based government official, who asked to remain anonymous.
Upon arrival in Yangon, Ban immediately departed for the Irrawaddy
Delta, which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 last year,
leaving an estimated 140,000 people dead or missing.
Ban last visited Myanmar a year ago, when he succeeded in
persuading Than Shwe to facilitate international aid to the millions
of victims left homeless and without food or medicine by the cyclone.
He has been less successful this trip, which aimed at putting
political pressure on the authoritarian regime that has ruled Myanmar
since 1988.
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy opposition
party, has been imprisoned for 14 of the past 20 years and faces
another three to five years in jail if found guilty of breaking the
terms of her house arrest.
The Nobel peace laureate has been charged with deliberately
allowing US citizen John William Yettaw to swim to her lakeside
residence May 3 and spend two nights in her compound.
A special court was scheduled to hear a defence witness in the Suu
Kyi case Friday, but the hearing was postponed until July 10, perhaps
because of Ban's arrival.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the 1990 general
election by a landslide but has been blocked from power by Myanmar's
junta ever since.
The new trial of Suu Kyi, whose most recent six-year house arrest
sentence expired May 27, has sparked a chorus of protests from world
leaders and statements of concern from its regional allies in ASEAN.
Ban will stopover in Bangkok Saturday night, when he has scheduled
a brief meeting with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva at
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport.
'Abhisit is meeting the UN secretary-general both in his capacity
as prime minister and as the current chair of the Association of
South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN),' Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman
Thani Thongpakdi said.
'Obviously Myanmar will be discussed but it will not be a
single-issue meeting,' Thani added.
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