|
On Myanmar, UN Visits As Possible Leverage, China
and India Want Ground Cover, Some Friends Say
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 12 -- How is Myanmar thought of, inside of the UN?
In a meeting
in the
UN basement barely covered by the press, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Group
of Friends for Myanmar met for
two hours on Friday, to review Ban's envoy Ibrahim Gambari's recent
visit and
try to agree on steps to move forward. The
Group carries with it the same split as within the Security Council's
Permanent
Five members -- the U.S., France and UK against China and these days
more than
ever Russia -- and also has India, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore,
Vietnam, Australia,
Norway, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union presidency,
represented
Friday by EU envoy Piero Fassino.
Indonesia
has been described as the bridge, between
Myanmar's Eastern
neighbors and Westerners who speak of freeing Burma. So after Friday's
meeting,
Inner City Press asked Indonesia's Ambassador Marty Natalegawa what
consensus if
any was reached.
Amb.
Natalegawa said that some "are
always trying to oversimplify and caricature where we are, either
exuberantly
positive or extremely negative." The reality, he said, is somewhere in
between. Another ASEAN diplomat stopped and told Inner City Press that
by his
count, the Government of Myanmar had responded positively to two of the
five
goals Gambari had been sent with, and had acknowledged but not given
ground on
three of them. "Four years ago, this visit would have been described as
successful," the ASEAN Ambassador said.
On
deeper background, out of the view of the
Ambassadors streaming out from the meeting room into the rainy streets,
a senior
diplomat who has spend "many years working on the Myanmar file" but
demanded anonymity said that Myanmar's government is reclusive and is
ready to
go it alone. He said the UN's leverage is to withhold the visits of
Gambari and
certainly Ban Ki-moon.
Amb. Natalegawa, at right, with UK Amb. Sawers,
all among Friends, ASSK not shown
But if
they are prepared to go it alone, do
they care? The diplomat countered that China and India, which both do
business
in Myanmar, like to have Gambari visiting. It allows them to say that
there is
a process, that things are on track. So to imply that Gambari won't
visit
unless Myanmar gives Ban and the UN something of a victory -- for
example
"the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi" -- just might work, the diplomat
said.
Under
this analysis, the criticism of
Gambari's trip as a failure helps the UN, which can say to Myanmar, we
are
under pressure, you have to give us something for us to keep visiting.
So
perhaps the stonewalling for 19 days after Gambari's visit, with Ban
Ki-moon
having no comment at all, was planned. Perhaps. But following this
logic, the
UN should make public some of its dissatisfaction and the threat of
delay by
Gambari. On September 11, however, Ban
Ki-moon said don't call the visit a
failure. Is this the right diplomatic move?
Footnote: the Group of Friends
meeting was slated to run from 3:30 to 4:30. But it continued on,
with two staffers coming out from time to time. At 5:10 UK Ambassador
John Sawers left; at 5:15 France's Jean-Maurice Ripert followed suit.
Only at 5:30 did Ban's flotilla, with Kim Won-soo and Vijay Nambiar,
come out without speaking. Might a visit be withheld? We'll see.
Watch this site, and this (UN) debate.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
