UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon on Tuesday acknowledged that post-Cyclone Nargis and post-referendum in Burma, the challenge before the world body is to push for concrete political reforms.
Burmese monk U Kovida (2ndR) speaks with US President George W. Bush (2ndL) and First Lady Laura Bush (C) during a meeting with dissidents on Governor's Island in New York. (Photo: AFP)UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon on Tuesday acknowledged that post-Cyclone Nargis and post-referendum in Burma, the challenge before the world body is to push for concrete political reforms.
Addressing the 63rd Session of the UN General Assembly, Ban made it clear that he would push for political change in Burma.
"The challenge now is to push for political progress, including credible steps on human rights and democracy," Ban said. The UN is yet to officially react to the release of a small number of political prisoners in Burma in the past few days.
Meanwhile, Britain expressed support on Tuesday for the secretary-general.
British Minister of State for Africa, Asia and the UN, Mark Malloch Brown, told the Security Council: "He [Ban] worked closely with Asean and other partners in the region in brokering a deal with the government that allowed aid to flow to survivors."
The British Minister said: "We continue to offer our full support for his engagement on Burma. We hope that the UN, Asean and the broader international community can bring the same unity of purpose and dynamism to bear in breaking the political deadlock in that country."
The Security Council has made its expectations clear, Brown said.
"We should remain united in demanding a fair and transparent political process there, beginning with the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," he said. "While we welcome the release today of a veteran journalist and close associate of hers, we in turn cannot forget the thousand or so political prisoners who remain in captivity and the on-going arrests of political activists, and we hope that all will be released."
Meanwhile, Ban has convened a ministerial-level meeting of his “group of friends on Burma” on the sidelines of the General Assembly session.
The Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Myanmar, which had its first meeting on December 19 last year, met several times at the ambassadorial level, the lastest meeting early this month.
The next meeting is likely to be attended by foreign ministers from Australia, Indonesia, Russia, the US, China, Japan, Singapore, Viet Nam, France, Norway, Thailand, India, Portugal and Britain.
Ban, who is planning to visit Burma by the end of this year, wants to have some concrete development towards restoration of democracy, release of political prisoners and protection of human rights before he sets the exact date of his third trip to the country this year. He visited Burma twice within a week in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in May.
Meanwhile, US first lady Laura Bush urged India and China to talk directly with Snr-Gen Than Shwe to try to resolve the Burmese political crisis.
"I want to urge all the neighbors of Burma, China and India and other others, to continue trying to talk to the Burmese general, Than Shwe, to see if he can't do what all the world, the international community, wants him to do," Bush told a group of Burmese dissidents meeting in New York City.
Addressing the meeting along with President George W Bush, the First Lady added: "And that is start respecting the rights of the people of Burma, start a real dialogue for a transition to democracy, talk with the opposition leaders, the people from the National League of Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, with all the ethnic groups, bring everyone to the table so that the country can start to rebuild and be the country that the people of Burma want."
Referring to a Burmese monk who stood beside the president at the meeting, she said: "It was almost a year ago, exactly, that the Burmese monks and many, many citizens of Burma turned out to protest in a peaceful protest, to protest a rise in gasoline prices that were done by the government."
Bush said the Burmese government put the uprising down with great brutality. "Many, many people were arrested, including many monks. Many dissidents and protesters had to go into hiding," she said.
Arrests of political activists continue, she said, including the recent arrest of a Generation 88 member, Nilar Thein.
President Bush raised the issue of Burma in his address to the UN General Assembly. "There should be a stronger effort to help the people of Burma live free of the repression they have suffered for too long," he said.
Later in the day, the US State Department urged the Burmese regime to release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and to move the country down the path toward democracy. "That's something we've been calling on for quite some time," said a State Department spokesperson.
When asked about the release of a few political prisoners and thousands of criminal prisoners in Burma this week as part of an amnesty, the spokesperson called it a positive development.
"We've heard that the Burmese regime has released, I believe it's 9,000 prisoners. I don't have the actual number of political prisoners that are part of that, although I understand that 76-year-old Win Tin, a journalist who's been a political prisoner for, I think, almost 20 years was released. And that's long overdue, but a very positive development," said the spokesperson.
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