UNITED NATIONS – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will return to Myanmar later this week on a diplomatic bid to win the release of Aung San Suu Kyi just as the imprisoned pro-democracy leader's trial resumes, U.N. officials announced Monday.
The U.N. chief decided at the last minute to accept an invitation from Myanmar's military junta for a two-day visit on Friday and Saturday. He'll arrive in Yangon, the commercial capital, the same day that Suu Kyi's trial resumes.
He'll also try to meet with her, Ban's spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said at U.N. headquarters.
The Nobel Peace laureate is in Myanmar's Insein prison and 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 U.N. chief plans to raise "a broad range of issues" while meeting with the ruling generals, including Senior Gen. Than Shwe in Naypyitaw, the remote administrative capital the junta moved its government offices to in 2005.
Ban believes that "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 the release of all political prisoners including Suu Kyi; resumption of dialogue between the military government and its opposition; and creating conditions for credible elections, Montas said.
He also wants to "consolidate and build on" humanitarian aid efforts that were the reason for his visit last year in the aftermath of devastating Cyclone Nargis.
To lay the groundwork for this visit, and to help him decide whether to go, Ban sent his envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, on his eighth such trip there since 2006. Gambari, who was welcomed Friday by Myanmar's opposition, has met with junta leaders and Suu Kyi before but with little effect in nudging the military regime toward talks with the pro-democracy movement.
Human Rights Watch and some governments have tried to dissuade Ban from visiting the nation also known as Burma, saying he could be exploited by the junta and his visit portrayed as somehow legitimizing Suu Kyi's trial.
British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said Monday his government and other nations' leaders had encouraged Ban to go "and expectations are understandably high" with Suu Kyi's trial underway.
Ban is uniquely well-placed to seek changes from Myanmar and "his personal engagement now offers the regime the opportunity to respond to the international community's demands," Lewis said.
"There is no doubt," he said, "that release of Aung San Suu Kyi and of the other 2,100 political prisoners, would begin a long-overdue transformation of Burma's relationship with the international community."