Showing posts with label UN envoy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UN envoy. Show all posts
Saturday, March 15, 2008
UN Envoy Yash Ghai banned from Cambodia by the human rights-violating regime of Hun Sen?
Ministry Orders Visa Restriction for UN Envoy By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
14 March 2008
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued an order banning Cambodian embassies the authority to issue visas for UN human rights envoy Yash Ghai without prior approval.
Ghai has had an increasingly cantankerous relationship with the government, especially with Prime Minister Hun Sun, following his strident criticism of Cambodia's poor human rights record and the concentration of power in the hands of the premier.
The visa restriction comes days ahead of Ghai's expected rights report to the International Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"Any visa application to Mr. Yash Ghai has to be approved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in advance, even if he's holding any kind of passport," the order says.
Christopher Peschoux, director of the Human Rights Office in Cambodia, said he would seek clarification on whether this policy was wider reaching or applicable only to Ghai.
Ghai has had an increasingly cantankerous relationship with the government, especially with Prime Minister Hun Sun, following his strident criticism of Cambodia's poor human rights record and the concentration of power in the hands of the premier.
The visa restriction comes days ahead of Ghai's expected rights report to the International Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"Any visa application to Mr. Yash Ghai has to be approved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in advance, even if he's holding any kind of passport," the order says.
Christopher Peschoux, director of the Human Rights Office in Cambodia, said he would seek clarification on whether this policy was wider reaching or applicable only to Ghai.
Monday, February 25, 2008
UN Envoy, to Stop Killing, Got Cozy With Khmer Rouge, Milosevic
The book jacket for "Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World" by Samantha Power is pictured in this undated handout image. Source: Penguin Press via Bloomberg NewsReview by Craig Seligman
Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations officials are often derided for putting Band-Aids on the gaping wounds of the world's trouble spots.
In ``Chasing the Flame,'' Samantha Power recounts the all-too-brief life of one of those diplomats: Sergio Vieira de Mello, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who died in 2003 in an al-Qaeda bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. He was 55.
Vieira de Mello, the son of a Brazilian diplomat, more or less drifted into UN work because he was good with languages. At first he was idealistic and eager to shake a finger at the world's butchers. Over the years he developed what Power calls a ``principled, flexible pragmatism'' -- sometimes too flexible.
He spent most of his career in hellholes, among them Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor and, fatally, Iraq. Again and again Power points up the UN's failures in those places, though ``failure'' is a relative term for an organization that sends its personnel into infernos the powerful nations of the world are eager to ignore.
Underfunded and underarmed, UN forces are often inadequate to the task before them. Then they're lambasted for doing too little by the very nations that have done less.
Yet somehow the UN has repeatedly managed to relieve suffering. Vieira de Mello could point proudly to the repatriation of refugees in Cambodia and Kosovo. In two and a half years in East Timor, he helped that fledgling nation, which had been almost destroyed by pro-Indonesian militias, onto its feet. (That was how he became a marked man: Osama bin Laden regarded the tiny Roman Catholic country as property that had been stolen from the Muslim world.)
`Serbio'
His ongoing moral dilemma was how far to engage the butchers in order to prevent more killing. Power doesn't hesitate to fault him for cozying up to the Khmer Rouge, and for becoming so friendly with Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic that his detractors started calling him ``Serbio.''
In what seems like an even crueler joke, this deftness at placating thugs was what made the Bush administration decide he was a man it could do business with. And that was his bad luck. He'd fallen in love and was ready to settle down in Geneva when the Americans pressured Secretary-General Kofi Annan into naming him head of the UN mission in Iraq.
Vieira de Mello had learned from his many mistakes, and he knew his experience could be valuable in stabilizing the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He cultivated L. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in the hope of being able to help. The Americans didn't want his advice.
Glutton for Research
Power, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for ``A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,'' is a glutton for research. She conducted hundreds of interviews and pored over thousands of pages of documents to produce ``Chasing the Flame.'' And even though her writing is just serviceable and her text runs well over 600 pages, the result is riveting.
She doesn't grandstand. She respects the UN even as she chronicles its dysfunctionality. Her book is a clear-eyed biography of a man who probably would have made the UN run better if he had, as was expected, eventually become secretary- general. And in doing so he could have helped a lot of people.
``Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World'' is from Penguin Press (622 pages, $32.95).
(Craig Seligman is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this story: Craig Seligman at cseligman@bloomberg.net
In ``Chasing the Flame,'' Samantha Power recounts the all-too-brief life of one of those diplomats: Sergio Vieira de Mello, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who died in 2003 in an al-Qaeda bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. He was 55.
Vieira de Mello, the son of a Brazilian diplomat, more or less drifted into UN work because he was good with languages. At first he was idealistic and eager to shake a finger at the world's butchers. Over the years he developed what Power calls a ``principled, flexible pragmatism'' -- sometimes too flexible.
He spent most of his career in hellholes, among them Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor and, fatally, Iraq. Again and again Power points up the UN's failures in those places, though ``failure'' is a relative term for an organization that sends its personnel into infernos the powerful nations of the world are eager to ignore.
Underfunded and underarmed, UN forces are often inadequate to the task before them. Then they're lambasted for doing too little by the very nations that have done less.
Yet somehow the UN has repeatedly managed to relieve suffering. Vieira de Mello could point proudly to the repatriation of refugees in Cambodia and Kosovo. In two and a half years in East Timor, he helped that fledgling nation, which had been almost destroyed by pro-Indonesian militias, onto its feet. (That was how he became a marked man: Osama bin Laden regarded the tiny Roman Catholic country as property that had been stolen from the Muslim world.)
`Serbio'
His ongoing moral dilemma was how far to engage the butchers in order to prevent more killing. Power doesn't hesitate to fault him for cozying up to the Khmer Rouge, and for becoming so friendly with Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic that his detractors started calling him ``Serbio.''
In what seems like an even crueler joke, this deftness at placating thugs was what made the Bush administration decide he was a man it could do business with. And that was his bad luck. He'd fallen in love and was ready to settle down in Geneva when the Americans pressured Secretary-General Kofi Annan into naming him head of the UN mission in Iraq.
Vieira de Mello had learned from his many mistakes, and he knew his experience could be valuable in stabilizing the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He cultivated L. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in the hope of being able to help. The Americans didn't want his advice.
Glutton for Research
Power, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for ``A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,'' is a glutton for research. She conducted hundreds of interviews and pored over thousands of pages of documents to produce ``Chasing the Flame.'' And even though her writing is just serviceable and her text runs well over 600 pages, the result is riveting.
She doesn't grandstand. She respects the UN even as she chronicles its dysfunctionality. Her book is a clear-eyed biography of a man who probably would have made the UN run better if he had, as was expected, eventually become secretary- general. And in doing so he could have helped a lot of people.
``Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World'' is from Penguin Press (622 pages, $32.95).
(Craig Seligman is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this story: Craig Seligman at cseligman@bloomberg.net
Friday, November 30, 2007
Envoy denies UN being too soft on Myanmar, expresses hope
U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari speaks to the media during a news conference at the UNDP headquarters in Phnom Penh November 30, 2007. Gambari said he wanted to return to Myanmar by the end of the year as part of efforts to secure the release of political prisoners and prod the country toward democracy. REUTERS/Chor SokuntheaNov 30, 2007
DPA
Phnom Penh - UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari said he believed a peaceful solution with the military junta was achievable, as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Cambodia Friday.
He also rejected criticism that the UN and ASEAN had not conveyed the importance of freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners strongly enough to the Myanmar government, saying it was difficult to be more forceful in a diplomatic context.
'We are saying very clearly that if Ang San Suu Kyi is to become part of the solution and a partner in dialogue that it is very, very essential that she be released from detention,' he said. 'Part of my consultation with the government is to make that point very clearly.'
Gambari appealed for calm on both sides in Myanmar, asking for trust in the diplomatic process, which he said was making progress.
He also expressed his belief in the Cambodian government's important diplomatic role and said he understood its reluctance to impose sanctions.
'Cambodia is not alone in terms of Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries who have reservations about sanctions,' he told a press conference in the capital. 'You will notice that even some of the countries that approve of sanctions are suggesting that sanctions alone may not be enough.
'Beyond sanctions what we can seek (from Cambodia) is their support and I think we have got that,' he said. 'As a neighbouring country with close relations with Myanmar, they have a privileged position to help us and convey key messages to the authorities in Myanmar, and I think they will do that.
Gambari visited Vietnam before Phnom Penh, and will wrap up his current tour of the region with a trip to Communist-led Laos.
He said his meetings with Vietnamese and Cambodian officials had raised hopes that those countries could operate bilaterally to support UN initiatives and 'offer some advice quietly.'
He also rejected criticism that the UN and ASEAN had not conveyed the importance of freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners strongly enough to the Myanmar government, saying it was difficult to be more forceful in a diplomatic context.
'We are saying very clearly that if Ang San Suu Kyi is to become part of the solution and a partner in dialogue that it is very, very essential that she be released from detention,' he said. 'Part of my consultation with the government is to make that point very clearly.'
Gambari appealed for calm on both sides in Myanmar, asking for trust in the diplomatic process, which he said was making progress.
He also expressed his belief in the Cambodian government's important diplomatic role and said he understood its reluctance to impose sanctions.
'Cambodia is not alone in terms of Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries who have reservations about sanctions,' he told a press conference in the capital. 'You will notice that even some of the countries that approve of sanctions are suggesting that sanctions alone may not be enough.
'Beyond sanctions what we can seek (from Cambodia) is their support and I think we have got that,' he said. 'As a neighbouring country with close relations with Myanmar, they have a privileged position to help us and convey key messages to the authorities in Myanmar, and I think they will do that.
Gambari visited Vietnam before Phnom Penh, and will wrap up his current tour of the region with a trip to Communist-led Laos.
He said his meetings with Vietnamese and Cambodian officials had raised hopes that those countries could operate bilaterally to support UN initiatives and 'offer some advice quietly.'
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Myanmar PM, UN envoy to visit Cambodia
YANGON, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein and the United Nations special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari will separately pay their visits to Cambodia this week, said local media on Wednesday.
It will be the new Myanmar prime minister's introductory trip to another member country of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) following those to Laos and Vietnam earlier this month.
Thein Sein, appointed as new prime minister on Oct. 24, will meet with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate President Chea Sim and National Assembly President Heng Samrin, after he arrives in Phnom Penh on Friday, said English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Daily.
Ibrahim Gambari will arrive on Thursday to meet government officials to discuss the situation in Myanmar, it quoted a statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as saying.
So far, there has been no official schedule for Ibrahim Gambari to meet with Thein Sein in Cambodia.
The envoy will leave on Friday and the prime minister on Sunday.
It will be the new Myanmar prime minister's introductory trip to another member country of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) following those to Laos and Vietnam earlier this month.
Thein Sein, appointed as new prime minister on Oct. 24, will meet with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate President Chea Sim and National Assembly President Heng Samrin, after he arrives in Phnom Penh on Friday, said English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Daily.
Ibrahim Gambari will arrive on Thursday to meet government officials to discuss the situation in Myanmar, it quoted a statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as saying.
So far, there has been no official schedule for Ibrahim Gambari to meet with Thein Sein in Cambodia.
The envoy will leave on Friday and the prime minister on Sunday.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Crackdown on monks in Myanmar will affect development: UN envoy
Saturday October 27, 2007 By IANS
New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) The crackdown by the Myanmar regime on the Buddhist monks-led pro-democracy protests may adversely impede the Southeast Asian nation's ability to meets its developmental aims, says senior UN envoy Erna Witoelar.
Witoelar, UN special ambassador for Millennium Development Goals in Asia and Pacific, pointed out that in development projects the role of intermediaries between the people and deliveries of services, like the government and voluntary groups, was crucial.
'In Myanmar, the main intermediaries were the Buddhist monks. Unfortunately, they have become the victims (of the crackdown)... that will naturally lead to a decline in the implementation of developmental projects,' Witoelar told IANS.
In New Delhi to take part in celebrations for United Nations Day, the former Indonesian minister said she was also worried that too much pressure on the Myanmar regime could cause it to further isolate itself.
'In Asia, we do not like to lose face. The more the West will impose sanctions, there is likely to be equivalent backlash by the regime,' she said, urging an 'Asian solution' that could persuade the regime in a 'friendly way'.
Witoelar, 60, had earlier travelled extensively in Myanmar as a representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and remembers having to rely on the largesse of Asean, India and China to act as donors for development projects, with the rest of the world boycotting that nation.
Appointed to her current position in 2003, Witoelar has been travelling around Asia to ensure that governments remain on track to achieve eight MDGs for reducing poverty, spreading good health and education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, environmental protection and equitable development. The MDGs were agreed upon by 192 countries at the UN Millennium summit in 2000.
Talking about the situation in India, Witoelar was concerned that while India would be able to achieve some MDG goals, it would be left behind in others. 'We are satisfied that India will be able to bring safe drinking water to more and more of its people, but we are worried that provision of sanitation may not be moving at the same pace,' she said.
Similarly, the goal of reducing the number of people living on less than one dollar a day may be met by India, as poverty levels drop with rising prosperity. But, Witoelar was concerned that combating malnutrition was a different ball game, in which India was getting left behind.
Further, while poverty levels were reducing, there was greater inequality in wealth distribution. 'In India, Fortune says that it has got the highest number of millionaires... There is large disparity in China between its eastern and western parts,' she pointed out.
One of the areas that she has been urging stakeholders to look at is the inter-linkage between the various issues, rather than looking at the sectors in an isolated way. 'Due to countries not looking at the linkages, there is a lot of waste of resources,' she said.
Corruption was also another area that she feels could impede achieving MDGs. 'While I cannot comment on India, in my own country Indonesia it is a major issue, as well as in Philippines and Cambodia,' said Witoelar.
But, at the same time, she is energised by the fact that poverty can become history within the next few years. 'There is a UN study which says if all countries meet their goals by 2015, then poverty could be eliminated by 2020,' she said, adding, 'This is an exciting thing'.
Witoelar, UN special ambassador for Millennium Development Goals in Asia and Pacific, pointed out that in development projects the role of intermediaries between the people and deliveries of services, like the government and voluntary groups, was crucial.
'In Myanmar, the main intermediaries were the Buddhist monks. Unfortunately, they have become the victims (of the crackdown)... that will naturally lead to a decline in the implementation of developmental projects,' Witoelar told IANS.
In New Delhi to take part in celebrations for United Nations Day, the former Indonesian minister said she was also worried that too much pressure on the Myanmar regime could cause it to further isolate itself.
'In Asia, we do not like to lose face. The more the West will impose sanctions, there is likely to be equivalent backlash by the regime,' she said, urging an 'Asian solution' that could persuade the regime in a 'friendly way'.
Witoelar, 60, had earlier travelled extensively in Myanmar as a representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and remembers having to rely on the largesse of Asean, India and China to act as donors for development projects, with the rest of the world boycotting that nation.
Appointed to her current position in 2003, Witoelar has been travelling around Asia to ensure that governments remain on track to achieve eight MDGs for reducing poverty, spreading good health and education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, environmental protection and equitable development. The MDGs were agreed upon by 192 countries at the UN Millennium summit in 2000.
Talking about the situation in India, Witoelar was concerned that while India would be able to achieve some MDG goals, it would be left behind in others. 'We are satisfied that India will be able to bring safe drinking water to more and more of its people, but we are worried that provision of sanitation may not be moving at the same pace,' she said.
Similarly, the goal of reducing the number of people living on less than one dollar a day may be met by India, as poverty levels drop with rising prosperity. But, Witoelar was concerned that combating malnutrition was a different ball game, in which India was getting left behind.
Further, while poverty levels were reducing, there was greater inequality in wealth distribution. 'In India, Fortune says that it has got the highest number of millionaires... There is large disparity in China between its eastern and western parts,' she pointed out.
One of the areas that she has been urging stakeholders to look at is the inter-linkage between the various issues, rather than looking at the sectors in an isolated way. 'Due to countries not looking at the linkages, there is a lot of waste of resources,' she said.
Corruption was also another area that she feels could impede achieving MDGs. 'While I cannot comment on India, in my own country Indonesia it is a major issue, as well as in Philippines and Cambodia,' said Witoelar.
But, at the same time, she is energised by the fact that poverty can become history within the next few years. 'There is a UN study which says if all countries meet their goals by 2015, then poverty could be eliminated by 2020,' she said, adding, 'This is an exciting thing'.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
U.N. envoy lands in Myanmar for talks
CRACKDOWN: Riot police and soldiers patrol Yangon streets to block anti-government protests first led by Buddhist monks. The military confined many monks to their monasteries.(Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)The streets of Yangon are quiet as the diplomat arrives to meet with military rulers after their crackdown on protesters.
September 30, 2007
By Henry Chu,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
NEW DELHI -- A U.N. special envoy arrived in Myanmar on Saturday for talks with the country's military rulers, whose ruthless crackdown on anti-government protesters has sparked international outrage.
The streets of Myanmar's main city, Yangon, were virtually empty of demonstrators for the first time in nearly two weeks and devoid of the gunfire and chaos that marked three days of violent suppression by soldiers and police. Security forces continued to patrol and seal off parts of the city, including the Buddhist monasteries whose monks spearheaded the protests.
After landing in Yangon on Saturday afternoon, United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari immediately traveled to the new capital of Naypyidaw, near Pyinmana about 200 miles to the north, where the generals who rule Myanmar live in relative isolation from the people.
Details of Gambari's schedule were not available, nor was it clear whether he would be allowed to visit pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is under house arrest and has been detained for most of the last 18 years.
"I expect to meet all the people that I need to meet," Gambari said in Singapore before departing for Myanmar, also known as Burma. He did not elaborate.
In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, urged Myanmar's leaders to give Gambari "access to all those he wishes to meet with, including religious leaders as well as Aung San Suu Kyi."
Analysts question how much Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, can achieve in talks with an iron-fisted junta that has repeatedly shown itself impervious to outside pressure.
His mission to Myanmar reflects the growing international concern and anger over the generals' brutal clampdown on protesters, in which the government acknowledges that 10 people have been killed. Diplomats and dissident groups estimate the death toll to be many times that figure, as high as 200.
Some observers feared a repeat of a 1988 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in which an estimated 3,000 people were killed.
The demonstrations began last month in response to steep fuel price increases but soon became an outlet for anger over 45 years of autocratic military rule. Last week, as many as 100,000 people marched in central Yangon, also known as Rangoon, including a large number of monks, who are revered in this predominantly Buddhist country.
The uneasy quiet on Yangon's streets Saturday, however, suggested that the armed crackdown that began Wednesday may have succeeded in containing the biggest challenge to the military's rule in nearly 20 years.
"Peace and stability has been restored," state-run newspapers said. The authorities had handled the protests "with care, using the least possible force."
Small groups gathered to taunt and curse soldiers and police but quickly escaped through alleyways when authorities began to charge, the Reuters news service reported.
Internet connections remained cut off, constricting the flow of photographs and video that had helped galvanize world opinion against the junta.
"The strategy is to neutralize the demonstrators, and they seem to have done that very effectively," said Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia.
Human rights organizations and Burmese activist groups in exile have called on leading nations, especially China, Myanmar's traditional ally, to pressure the regime to stop using force against its opponents. The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Myanmar, and the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, one of the few multilateral organizations to which Myanmar belongs, issued a statement expressing its "revulsion" over the bloody crackdown.
On Saturday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, "I hope the Burmese regime can be told today by Mr. Gambari just how seriously we view this, and that there is a huge anger across the world about the deaths and about the violence that's been perpetrated against the Burmese people."
But international condemnation, and efforts such as Gambari's visit, probably will have little effect, Huxley said.
"External leverage is extremely limited," he said. "There's been a variety of external pressure over the years -- the dramatic approaches, including successive U.N. envoys who have made representations and failed, representations in very muted form by fellow members of ASEAN and sanctions imposed by Western countries to varying degrees -- and none of them have had significant effect."
henry.chu@latimes.com
September 30, 2007
By Henry Chu,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
NEW DELHI -- A U.N. special envoy arrived in Myanmar on Saturday for talks with the country's military rulers, whose ruthless crackdown on anti-government protesters has sparked international outrage.
The streets of Myanmar's main city, Yangon, were virtually empty of demonstrators for the first time in nearly two weeks and devoid of the gunfire and chaos that marked three days of violent suppression by soldiers and police. Security forces continued to patrol and seal off parts of the city, including the Buddhist monasteries whose monks spearheaded the protests.
After landing in Yangon on Saturday afternoon, United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari immediately traveled to the new capital of Naypyidaw, near Pyinmana about 200 miles to the north, where the generals who rule Myanmar live in relative isolation from the people.
Details of Gambari's schedule were not available, nor was it clear whether he would be allowed to visit pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is under house arrest and has been detained for most of the last 18 years.
"I expect to meet all the people that I need to meet," Gambari said in Singapore before departing for Myanmar, also known as Burma. He did not elaborate.
In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, urged Myanmar's leaders to give Gambari "access to all those he wishes to meet with, including religious leaders as well as Aung San Suu Kyi."
Analysts question how much Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, can achieve in talks with an iron-fisted junta that has repeatedly shown itself impervious to outside pressure.
His mission to Myanmar reflects the growing international concern and anger over the generals' brutal clampdown on protesters, in which the government acknowledges that 10 people have been killed. Diplomats and dissident groups estimate the death toll to be many times that figure, as high as 200.
Some observers feared a repeat of a 1988 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in which an estimated 3,000 people were killed.
The demonstrations began last month in response to steep fuel price increases but soon became an outlet for anger over 45 years of autocratic military rule. Last week, as many as 100,000 people marched in central Yangon, also known as Rangoon, including a large number of monks, who are revered in this predominantly Buddhist country.
The uneasy quiet on Yangon's streets Saturday, however, suggested that the armed crackdown that began Wednesday may have succeeded in containing the biggest challenge to the military's rule in nearly 20 years.
"Peace and stability has been restored," state-run newspapers said. The authorities had handled the protests "with care, using the least possible force."
Small groups gathered to taunt and curse soldiers and police but quickly escaped through alleyways when authorities began to charge, the Reuters news service reported.
Internet connections remained cut off, constricting the flow of photographs and video that had helped galvanize world opinion against the junta.
"The strategy is to neutralize the demonstrators, and they seem to have done that very effectively," said Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia.
Human rights organizations and Burmese activist groups in exile have called on leading nations, especially China, Myanmar's traditional ally, to pressure the regime to stop using force against its opponents. The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Myanmar, and the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, one of the few multilateral organizations to which Myanmar belongs, issued a statement expressing its "revulsion" over the bloody crackdown.
On Saturday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, "I hope the Burmese regime can be told today by Mr. Gambari just how seriously we view this, and that there is a huge anger across the world about the deaths and about the violence that's been perpetrated against the Burmese people."
But international condemnation, and efforts such as Gambari's visit, probably will have little effect, Huxley said.
"External leverage is extremely limited," he said. "There's been a variety of external pressure over the years -- the dramatic approaches, including successive U.N. envoys who have made representations and failed, representations in very muted form by fellow members of ASEAN and sanctions imposed by Western countries to varying degrees -- and none of them have had significant effect."
henry.chu@latimes.com
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