Envoy Meets Skepticism in Burma Amid Massacre Reports

UNITED NATIONS — Amid increasing numbers of reports that the ruling Burmese junta's violence has been underestimated, supporters of the pro-democracy uprising there say the expected meetings between a U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, and the Burmese generals could do more harm than good.

According to unconfirmed reports yesterday, the ruling junta massacred thousands of protesters, dumping their bodies in the woods. One activist, Marcus Oscarsson, who visited Burma in recent days, quoted a high-ranking military official who defected, Hla Win, as saying: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Until yesterday, most reports from Burma cited hundreds of deaths, as well as the arrests of thousands of protesters, many of whom are presumed to have been tortured. The country's military rulers closed its borders to the press, shot journalists, and attempted to block access to the Internet. Online video, still photographs, and articles from inside the country have documented the violent crackdown on the popular revolt, which is being led by Burma's revered Buddhist monks.

Secretary-General Ban dispatched Mr. Gambari — who prior to joining the U.N. Secretariat served as the Nigerian ambassador to the United Nations under the dictator Sani Abacha — to impress on the Burmese junta the world's revulsion at the violent clampdown on dissent.

Mr. Gambari arrived in Burma on Saturday and was allowed to meet the country's imprisoned democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then he has been waiting for a meeting with the top military officers who run the country, including the chairman of the so-called State Peace and Development Council, General Than Shwe. Yesterday, according to a U.N. statement, the generals told Mr. Gambari that he would be able to see Mr. Shwe today.

"We have deep reservations about Gambari because all of his previous assessments turned out to be wrong," the director of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, Jeremy Woodrum, told The New York Sun yesterday.

Mr. Woodrum cited several statements by Mr. Gambari, including a contention last year that the ruling junta is "willing to turn a new page in the country's relations with the international community," and a comment earlier this year encouraging the generals to "build on the positive steps they are making."

In a letter to the Washington Post earlier this year, Mr. Gambari said that "all key interested countries, including China, India, Russia, and Myanmar's Association of Southeast Asian Nations neighbors, are mobilized to encourage the country to make progress."

Earlier, ASEAN members had refrained from threatening the junta with expulsion if the repression continued. But in a letter to Mr. Shwe yesterday, the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, who serves as the group's chairman, warned of "serious implications," not only for Burma "but also for ASEAN and the whole region" if the junta continued its crackdown.

Mr. Ban said yesterday that he called Mr. Gambari and asked him to press the junta leaders to "cease the repression of peaceful protest, release detainees, and to move more credibly in the direction of democratic reform, human rights, and national reconciliation."

Mr. Woodrum, however, expressed skepticism that Mr. Gambari could credibly pressure the junta. "We want the U.N. Security Council to intervene, but China has paralyzed the council," he said.

American diplomats have sought in the last few years to raise the issue of the repression in Burma at the Security Council, where a group of members, led by China, have resisted any significant action. Now officials say they hope that upon Mr. Gambari's return, the council will finally address the worsening situation. "We want to hear from him when he gets back," the American ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Sun yesterday.

But a Russian diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that Mr. Gambari did not travel to Burma on the council's behalf, and therefore the council may not act even if he issues a dire report. Although the council issued a statement in support of the secretary-general after he decided to dispatch Mr. Gambari to Burma, that may not be enough to force the issue onto the agenda.