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Kofi Annan tells Myanmar to democratise

JAKARTA: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan took aim at military-ruled Myanmar on Saturday, delivering a stern message to the junta’s hardline leader to deliver on long-promised democratic reform.

Annan met Senior General Than Shwe on the sidelines of a summit of Asian and African leaders in the Indonesian capital and said he hoped the general would think about the message.

Myanmar has not allowed Annan’s special envoy, Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail, to visit Yangon for more than a year. “I met General Than Shwe and we did discuss the situation in Myanmar and the democratisation process. He briefed me extensively as to how he sees things and how things were going,” Annan told a news conference. “I did raise the question of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD and the fact that it was vitally important that all people...be able to organise themselves and exercise their individual rights,” he said, referring the the jailed opposition icon and her National League for Democracy, which won 1990 elections but was never allowed to govern.

“I think he listened to me, he got my message and...now he will go back hopefully to think about it and do something about the message I gave him.”

The UN Commission on Human Rights on Thursday unanimously urged Myanmar to halt killings, rapes and torture by government forces and the harassment of opposition activists led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi. Myanmar has come under renewed pressure from fellow Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to free Suu Kyi from house arrest and implement reforms.

Yangon promised to bring the country back to democracy through a seven-stage roadmap laid out in 2003 by then prime minister Khin Nyunt, who was purged last October. The secretive state, ruled by the military since 1962, is due to take over the chairmanship of ASEAN next year. The United States and Europe, which have imposed sanctions on Myanmar, are threatening not to attend any ASEAN meetings hosted by Yangon.

Than Shwe has held bilateral meetings with several ASEAN leaders in Jakarta, as well as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao. reuters

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