UN chief aims to meet jailed activist
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UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will return to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, this week in a bid to win the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, just as the imprisoned prodemocracy leader’s trial resumes.
The UN chief decided at the last minute to accept an invitation from Myanmar’s military junta to visit on Friday and Saturday, officials said yesterday. He will arrive the same day Suu Kyi’s trial resumes. He will also try to meet with her, Ban’s spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said.
The Nobel laureate is being tried on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest after an uninvited American man swam to her closely guarded lakeside home last month and stayed two days. Montas said the UN chief plans to raise “a broad range of issues’’ with the ruling generals.
Ban believes “three of the most important issues for the future of Myanmar cannot be left unaddressed at this juncture of the country’s political process.’’ They are gaining release of all political prisoners, resuming dialogue between the military government and its opposition, and creating conditions for credible elections, Montas said.
