Statement of 88 Generation Students (Exile) on

UN’s role in Burma Context

Date: August 29, 2008
Today, Burma pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi indicated to the United Nations
that she was very disappointed with special envoy Mr. Gambari for his encouragement of
the regime’s election in 2010, which is based on the new constitution that favors military
rule. Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to see Mr. Gambari proves she is very upset. She has
already refused to take food from outside sources, which means she is on hunger strike.

Aung San Suu Kyi clearly sees the tactics that the regime is using for more than 18 years.
SPDC has been using the UN as its tool to buy time and give a false impression of
national reconciliation and dialogue, which has never occurred. Therefore, she wants to
end this charade by refusing to meet with UN diplomats.

Mr. Gambari is encouraging the NLD and opposition groups to participate in the 2010
election. 1990 election was sponsored by the regime and, when they lost the election,
they refused to recognize the results. Does Gambari have assurance that the regime will
respect the next election’s results if the opposition wins?

Furthermore, the new constitution was drafted by the regime with a critical chapter that
gives legal power to the defense minister, who will most likely be the army’s chief of
staff. The chapter gives the defense minister the right to take over the state’s power if
necessary. Therefore, even if the opposition wins the election and tries to change the
constitution, the defense minister can stage a legal coup under the new constitution.

Both Gambari and his predecessor, Razali Ismail, failed miserably in their Burma
campaigns but Marie Okabe, a deputy spokeswoman of UN Secretary General, said,
“One should not make a judgment on the process based on each individual visit.”

When Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail was appointed the UN’s special envoy for
Burma on April 4th, 2000, the regime praised him as a fellow Southeast Asian diplomat
and trusted person. They released ten to twenty political prisoners before every visit of
his to Burma and made him believed there would be a positive outcome. In Reality,
Razali Ismail’s repeated trips proved no concrete progress. Prisoners released during his
visits were grassroots activists, not the leadership.

Finally, after fours years without progress, he was no longer allowed to visit Burma. As a
matter of fact, he failed to start a dialogue between NLD and SPDC. Similarly, the fourth
visit by Gambari failed to achieve dialogue between the ruling generals and NLD,
because he is pleasing the SPDC and pressuring NLD to compromise.

We urge UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon to visit Burma immediately and help
find out what kind of difficulties Aung San Suu Kyi has been facing.

We urge the UN to mediate a dialogue between NLD and SPDC rather than put its faith
in the regime’s one-sided election in 2010.

We want the UN and International Red Cross to investigate conditions inside Burma’s
notorious prisons and its treatment of all prisoners, not only political prisoners.

We want to see real dialogue starting with the release all political prisoners.

88 Generation Students (Exile)