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IT TAKES THREE: Prof Gambari meeting Gen Aung Kyi on Tuesday. Prof Gambari's proposal for three-way talks with Ms Suu Kyi has been rejected. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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YANGON - UNITED NATIONS special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has apparently failed to make any headway in Myanmar's crisis after the junta rejected proposed talks with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying it refuses to bow to big powers.
Professor Gambari is likely to leave Myanmar today without meeting the country's most powerful figure, junta chief Than Shwe.
But he was reported to have told diplomats yesterday in the capital, Naypyidaw, that he will see Ms Suu Kyi before departing.
The Nigerian envoy had proposed a three-way meeting involving Ms Suu Kyi, Labour Minister Aung Kyi and himself to promote political reform and reconciliation following the government's violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September.
He met Mr Aung Kyi, whom the junta appointed last month to liaise with Ms Suu Kyi on Tuesday.
'Currently, the tripartite meeting will not be possible,' Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told Prof Gambari on Tuesday, according to the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
The rejection of three-way talks may reflect the junta's disdain for anything but its own widely derided 'democracy roadmap', according to analysts and diplomats.
State media yesterday accused the UN of being biased and interfering.
The four pages of 'clarification on Myanmar's situation' in the New Light of Myanmar, the junta's main mouthpiece, stunned diplomats, who had seen a sliver of hope in Prof Gambari's two visits.
'There's no doubt in my mind that this regime has no intention of cooperating with Gambari or of starting a process of genuine political dialogue,' one Yangon-based diplomat said.
'It's beyond them.'
However, former Australian ambassador Trevor Wilson said it was not unheard of for the junta to dismiss an outside proposal, such as the UN envoy's idea of holding three-way talks, and then come back later with a similar idea packaged as a home-grown initiative.
'They won't accept any proposition like this unless they can demonstrate it's not outside pressure and outside interference,' Mr Wilson said.
'They very often don't come at something first time around, particularly if it's not something they thought of.'
Myanmar analysts in exile said the tone of the state media suggested complete intransigence on the part of junta supremo Than Shwe, who many suspect is in denial about the deepening poverty that initially fuelled anti-junta protests in August.
In what was basically a lecture to Prof Gambari reported in full in state media, Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan launched into detailed criticism of the UN, especially on the failed US-led attempt to refer it to the Security Council in January.
'I would like you to know that Myanmar is a small nation and if a big power bullies her with its influences by putting Myanmar's affairs on UN Security Council, we will have no other way but to face and endure,' he said. 'You should not force or pressure us.'
He admitted that the 'national economy and public socio-economy are not developing as they should', but laid the blame on international sanctions, rather than the allegations of policy ineptitude and corruption by the US and other Western governments.
'This shows how stubborn the generals are,' said Mr Win Min, a former student who now lectures in Thailand. 'They don't want to talk. They just want to buy time.'
Ever since soldiers crushed monk-led protests in September, killing at least 10 people and possibly many more, the junta has faced unprecedented pressure to move away from 45 years of army rule that have crippled a once-promising economy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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