UN secretary general "deeply disappointed" in Myanmar (Roundup)

Yangon/Bangkok - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki- moon on Saturday called on Myanmar's junta to allow opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to participate in politics. Ban was speaking after being denied access to the democracy icon during a two-day official visit to the country to press for the release of the Myanmar opposition leader and 2,100 other political prisoners. 'I am deeply disappointed with the refusal of the senior general to let me meet with Daw (Mrs) Aung San Suu Kyi,' a grim looking Ban told a press briefing before departing Myanmar Saturday evening. In a strongly worded statement, Ban added: 'Without respect for human rights and democracy a country cannot develop.' Ban met with Myanmar junta chief Senior General Than Shwe twice on Friday and Saturday in Naypyitaw, the military headquarters, 350 kilometres north of Yangon. He was twice denied permission to visit Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, 64, who 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. Ban later Saturday travelled from Yangon to Bangkok, where he reporters at the airport, 'I think the rejection of my visit to Aung San Suu Kyi should not be seen as the only benchmark for the success or failure of my visit.' Myanmar's military rulers had not rejected outright any of the other issues that he raised, he noted. The United Nations has been calling for the release of political prisoners before elections next year and the opening of dialogue with opposition and ethnic minority groups. Ban said his trip to Naypitaw also included a private meeting with four leaders of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 1990 general election by a landslide but has been blocked from power by the junta ever since. The NLD is refusinmg to participate in the general election election being organized by the junta. 'My message to them was that all political parties may have a difference of opinion but the democratic process requires for each and every political party to play their own role in a constructive way,' he said. 'Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must be allowed to participate in the political process without delay,' Ban said. Suu Kyi is currently in Yangon's notorious Insein Prison. Ban arrived in Yangon midday Saturday from Naypyitaw, and paid a quick visit to 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 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 had been scheduled to hear a defence witness in the case Friday, but the hearing was postponed until July 10, perhaps because of Ban's visit. 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's stopover in Bangkok Saturday was to include 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.