UN chief of staff to visit Myanmar

YANGON - The chief of staff of the UN secretary general was to visit Myanmar over the weekend to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other politicians, officials said Friday.

“Vijay Nambiar will arrive in Yangon on Saturday via Bangkok for a two-day visit,” a senior government official told DPA on condition of anonymity.

Nambiar, Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff since January 2007, previously served as a special advisor to former UN chief Kofi Annan.

During his brief stay, Nambiar was scheduled to meet with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, who was freed Nov 13 after seven years of house arrest.

It was unclear if Nambiar was replacing Ibrahim Gambari, Ban’s former special envoy on Myanmar affairs. Gambari’s post was terminated last year and Ban has yet to name a successor.

Myanmar held a general election Nov 7 for the first time in two decades. The ballot was won by pro-junta parties, but the military-staged exercise has been widely criticised by western democracies as a sham.

Suu Kyi was kept under house detention during the polls and her National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party was effectively excluded from the election by regulations imposed by the military shortly before the vote.

Myanmar has been under military dictatorships since 1962. The previous general election of 1990 was won by the NLD, but its elected lawmakers were blocked from assuming power by the ruling junta.