By EDITH M. LEDERER,

AP

Posted: 2008-02-11 16:12:01

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Myanmar’s military government on Monday to hold substantive talks with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi without delay to ensure that the constitution it plans to put to a referendum in May represents all citizens.

He also urged the government to grant a visa to the top U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, to visit Myanmar again in the very near future. Gambari will visit Beijing on Feb. 18-19, then travel to Jakarta on a date to be confirmed, and to Singapore on Feb. 25, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.

Last week, the government announced the May referendum and a general election in 2010. It was the first time it has set dates for specific steps in its so-called road map to democracy, which has been widely criticized for failing to include any input from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which won the last election in 1990, and ethnic minorities.

Scheduling the constitutional referendum for May makes it difficult for the junta’s critics to mount a campaign against it, particularly because most of the country’s leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many detained in connection with anti-government demonstrations held in August and September last year.

Two of Myanmar’s top dissident groups, one led by Buddhist monks and one led by students, on Monday denounced the planned constitutional referendum as an effort to perpetuate the junta’s rule.

The Generation 88 Student group, most of whose leaders were arrested during and after last year’s protests, asked the U.N. Security Council to pressure the junta for reforms, and urged Ban to visit Myanmar as soon as possible.

Asked whether the secretary-general planned a visit to Myanmar, Montas said “not at this point, but he’s certainly aware of the Generation 88 statement.”

Ban made clear that the United Nations remains highly critical of the constitution-drafting process.

“The secretary-general renews his call to the Myanmar authorities to make the constitution-making process inclusive, participatory and transparent in order to ensure that any draft constitution is broadly representative of the views of all the people of Myanmar,” Montas said.

“In this regard, he believes it is now all the more important for the Myanmar leadership to engage without delay in a substantive and time-bound dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other relevant parties to the national reconciliation process,” Montas said.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been in prison or under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

Following the junta’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests last year, Western nations and the U.N. pressed the country’s military leaders to hold talks with Suu Kyi to bring about democratic reform. The junta appointed a ministerial-level official, Aung Kyi, to meet with her, but according to a party member Suu Kyi is not satisfied with the progress of her meetings.

Montas said Monday that the U.N. remains ready to continue to support the national reconciliation process.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since the last one was scrapped in 1988, when the army brutally put down earlier pro-democracy demonstrations and the current junta took power.

The country has been in a political deadlock since the military refused to recognize the 1990 election results, saying after the polls that the country first needed a new constitution.

Guidelines for a new constitution were adopted by a national convention last year, and a government-appointed commission is now drafting the document.

Critics denounced the constitutional convention process as a stage-managed farce because the military hand-picked most delegates. The National League for Democracy charged that the junta was trying to draft a constitution unilaterally, and it therefore “could not be expected to guarantee democracy, human rights and public well-being.”

Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups, some of whom have been seeking greater autonomy for decades, complained that the constitution would give the central government greater powers.

A clause in the draft guidelines guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the country’s parliament, with the representatives nominated by the commander in chief.

The new constitution also disqualifies presidential candidates who are “entitled to the rights and privileges of a … foreign country” – thereby barring Suu Kyi, whose late husband was British.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

02/11/08 16:10 EST

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