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UN Envoy Arrives in Rangoon For Tal



UN special envoy arrives in Myanmar for talks

YANGON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - A United Nations special envoy arrived in Yangon on
Tuesday for a three-day visit aimed at prodding Myanmar's (Burma's) ruling
junta towards democracy and encouraging dialogue with opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi. 

Alvaro De Soto, who arrived from Singapore, was likely to urge the ruling
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to speed up the drafting of a new
constitution and to hold elections as soon as possible, analysts said. 

De Soto is a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who arranged
the visit after meeting Myanmar's prime minister, Senior General Than Shwe, at
a regional summit in Kuala Lumpur last December. 

The envoy was scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw on Wednesday and
hold separate talks with Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy
(NLD). 

He was expected to urge the SPDC to hold a dialogue with Suu Kyi to help bring
lasting peace to the country, one analyst said. 

The SPDC has repeatedly refused to hold direct talks with Suu Kyi since she
was released from six years of house arrest in July 1995. It has also limited
her political activities. 

NLD members declined to comment on De Soto's planned meeting with Suu Kyi. 

But exiled Myanmar opposition activists in Bangkok said the NLD was against
new elections and instead wanted the junta to recognise the results of the
1990 national election, which the NLD won by a landslide. 

The military ignored that result and has kept a tight grip on power ever
since. 

``The NLD and our organisation share the political stance that we do not want
to have new elections. We want the military regime and the UN to recognise the
1990 election,'' said Aung Naing Oo, secretary general of the All Burma
Student's Democratic Front (ABSDF). 

``Maybe Mr. Annan has made a mistake. Why should we have a new election when a
valid election was already organised in 1990?'' Aung Naing Oo told Reuters. 

In an open letter to De Soto, the ABSDF urged the envoy to ask the government
to re-open universities and colleges recently closed because of student
unrest. 

``Continued closures will adversely affect Burma's (Myanmar's) development and
result in further animosity between the students and the regime,'' it wrote. 

It also asked De Soto to raise the question of the more than 1,000 political
prisoners held by the military and to seek their release. 

The ABSDF urged De Soto to press the government to hold dialogue with Suu Kyi
and other Myanmar ethnic group leaders to foster national reconciliation.
^REUTERS@