Word: shwe
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Before it began, United Nations officials had described U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit to Burma as a diplomatically risky mission that could end in failure. After it ended, following two days in Burma and two rare and lengthy meetings with General Than Shwe, the reclusive leader of the country's military government, Ban had come away with nothing concrete to show for his venture. His requests to meet imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi were rejected. His pleas for the government to release its 2,000-plus political prisoners were ignored. "I believe...
...During his first meeting with Than Shwe, Ban asked for permission to see Suu Kyi. Than Shwe refused. The U.N.'s top diplomat said the success or failure of his mission should not be judged solely on the benchmark of meeting Aung San Suu Kyi, though he lamented that it would have been "an important symbol of the government's willingness to embark on the kind of meaningful engagement" that would lend credibility to the elections. Ban said his mission served the purpose of allowing him to convey what the international community and the United Nations expects from the regime...
...optimism going into last week's meeting probably sprung from his limited success with Than Shwe during a previous meeting in 2008, convincing him to allow outside humanitarian assistance into the country after Cyclone Nargis. But he is far from the first diplomat to fail to persuade Burma's generals to entertain any serious notion of real political reform. Going forward, Ban said he would brief the U.N. on the visit, and the organization would monitor the regime's progress on his proposals, which he did not outline in detail, save for saying election laws and an election commission should...
...nothing new among Burma's generals. A Burmese, U Thant, served as U.N. Secretary-General for 10 years, from 1961 to 1971. When he died in 1974 and his body was flown back to Burma, leader General Ne Win, the mentor of current ruler Than Shwe, refused U Thant a state funeral or any honors whatsoever...
...When I flew on a wheezing Myanma Airways plane to Sittwe, a squad of military officers with pistols on their hips boarded the flight. As the plane climbed into the air, two men in uniform stood in the aisle and unrolled a large, laminated map that showed the Shwe pipeline route in red. Yet the general public in Arakan has not been told what many suspected and what the map I saw indicated: that the pipeline, on which construction is scheduled to begin this year, will travel through populous areas and will likely result in extensive village relocations. (Both Daewoo...