New UN Burma envoy to be appointed ‘in due time’

Thomas Maung Shwe, Mizzima News



UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announces that he will stand for a second five-year term as secretary-general during a press conference at UN headquarters in New York on June 6. Ban has been secretary-general since January 1, 2007 and his term ends on December 31. Diplomats say that with no rival in sight, the UN Security Council should give its approval before the end of June.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announces that he will stand for a second five-year term as secretary-general during a press conference at UN headquarters in New York on June 6. Ban has been secretary-general since January 1, 2007 and his term ends on December 31. Diplomats say that with no rival in sight, the UN Security Council should give its approval before the end of June. Photo: AFP PHOTO/HO/ UN PHOTO/EVAN SCHNEIDER
More than 18 months after UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar assumed the role of UN envoy to Burma on an interim basis, the UN has yet to appoint a replacement to take up the position but according to the UN this will change.

At a meeting in New York last week of representatives from countries concerned about Burma known as the Myanmar Group of Friends, Ban indicated that he would appoint another full time envoy because Burma’s new government led by retired General Thein Sein has made a ‘commitment’ to cooperate more with the UN. An elected government recently took power following elections in November 2010.

Responding to questions from Mizzima about a replacement envoy, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for Ban, said in an e-mail on Friday, ‘Now that the new government has committed to working more closely with the United Nations, the secretary-general told the Group of Friends that he intended to appoint a special adviser in due time’.

During Nambiar’s recent trip to Burma, National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi reiterated to the former senior Indian diplomat her desire for a new envoy.  Burma’s famed opposition leader first publicly called for a full-time envoy to be appointed ‘as soon as possible’ in an interview with Radio Free Asia on March 4, saying, ‘I think that if a responsible person is appointed full time to properly monitor Burma in depth, then the secretary-general will be apprised of the exact situation in Burma’.

Although the British and Mexican delegations to the UN Security Council made similar calls at the end of last year for a full time envoy, Ban has yet to announce a replacement for Nambiar. Ban's chief of staff continues to come under criticism from human rights groups for his handling of the Burma file. Last month Human Rights Watch’s executive director Kenneth Roth responded to the conclusion of the UN envoy’s trip to Burma by issuing a statement using his Twitter account condemning Ban’s trusted ally because Nambiar ‘neglects justice for war crimes’.

Suu Kyi’s comment during her interview with VOA in March that she wanted a ‘responsible person’ in the role of Burma envoy may have been a reference to her refusal to meet Nambiar’s Nigerian predecessor Ibharim Gambari on at least one occasion. Gambari, who served as Ban’s special envoy to Burma while Suu Kyi was under house arrest, previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN during the rule of military dictator Sani Abacha.

Gambari’s term as Abacha’s representative to the UN is best remembered by many Nigerians for Gambari’s spirited defense of the 1995 execution of Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa and eight of his colleagues from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) on charges of ‘incitement to murder’. While the international community condemned Abacha’s execution of the MOSOP nine, Gambari called the Ogoni activists ‘common criminals’.