Why was UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in Burma?
Bangkok (Mizzima) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appears to have left Burma empty-handed on what was seen beforehand as a crucial visit to strengthen the UN’s role in the country and encourage the junta to be inclusive and transparent in its national reconciliation process. The international community is now focused on the regime’s rejection of Ban’s requests to see detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Ban is obviously personally disappointed as he believed he had established a special relationship with Senior General Than Shwe, hinting that Burma’s military head-of-state may listen favorably to him. “I’m deeply disappointed,” Ban told journalists at Rangoon airport when he arrived by plane from the capital Naypyitaw, after a second meeting with the junta’s top leader. “I think they have missed a very important opportunity of demonstrating their willingness to commit to continuing reconciliation with all political leaders. It is a setback to the international community’s
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, arrived in Rangoon on Thursday, as the junta began to evict cyclone survivors from schools to make way for polling stations. Mr Ban met the prime minister Thien Sien and foreign aid officials for an hour and a half to urge greater access for relief supplies and later took a helicopter to the devastated Irrawaddy Delta. He will meet the junta leader, Than Shwe, in his remote new capital Naypyidaw, on Friday. Standing barefoot at Rangoon’s principal shrine, the Shwedagon pagoda, Mr Ban told temple trustees: “I’ve tried to bring a message of hope to your people. “At the same time, I hope your people and government can co-ordinate the flow of aid so the aid work can be done in a more systematic and organised way.” As he spoke, cyclone survivors in the city were being thrown out of their temporary shelters. “The school will be used as a polling station,” said a teacher at one school. “We needed people to leave.” At another camp soldiers wer
