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Suu Kyi sets terms for UN role

SINGAPORE: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s celebrated democracy campaigner, has told United Nations Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari that her National League for Democracy would press for “the release of all political prisoners” and a dialogue with the junta.

Mr. Gambari, who met Ms. Suu Kyi and five top NLD leaders in Yangon on Monday, wanted to know her terms and priorities for the proposed visit to Myanmar by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

She also wanted formation of a committee to review the new military-crafted Constitution, which was recently approved in a junta-organised “referendum,” and the summoning of Parliament elected in 1990 but never convened.

NLD spokesman U Nyan Win told The Hindu over telephone from Yangon that Ms. Suu Kyi, under detention for long at her residence, appeared “very good, mentally and physically.”

Mr. Gambari will meet the junta leadership on Tuesday. He asked her to identify “the most tangible” result she would like in the context of Mr. Ban’s planned visit to Myanmar at an unspecified date.

Her reply was that “the release of all political prisoners” would top the list of expectations. Also, the junta should talk to the NLD as also “all ethnic groups” in Myanmar.

Ms. Suu Kyi’s recent “individual appeal” to the junta for her freedom did not figure in her talks with Mr. Gambari, who had met her during some of his previous tours of Myanmar as well. Mr. Nyan Win said there was “no progress at all” so far in regard to her “appeal,” in terms of any date being set for “arguments” for a decision by the junta in an executive or judicial process.

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