NYT : Myanmar Junta Admits Mass Arrests

Myanmar Junta Admits Mass Arrests

By THOMAS FULLER | October 5, 2007

BANGKOK, Oct. 4 — For the first time, Myanmar’s military rulers late Thursday acknowledged mass detentions in their brutal crackdown on protesters, saying that about 1,400 people were being held. They also made a heavily qualified offer to meet with the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The junta offered to hold talks with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, but only if she abandoned her attitude of “confrontation” and repealed her call for foreign sanctions against the country. The announcement was made on the nightly radio and television newscasts, which are monitored by news agencies.

State news media said that during a meeting in Myanmar this week, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the junta, told Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations envoy, that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi “has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions.”

If she “announces publicly she has given up these four things, he would hold direct talks” with her, General Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari, according to Myanmar media.

[Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League of Democracy, dismissed the offer as unreasonable, Reuters reported on Friday.]

Dissident groups from Myanmar, formerly Burma, were scathing in their appraisal of the proposal.

“This is meaningless; this is just for show,” said Aung Din, the policy director of the United States Campaign for Burma, a group based in Washington that is working to bring democracy to the country. “There are economic sanctions against Burma not because of Aung San Suu Kyi, but because of the military rulers. He has to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi without any conditions.”

State media also announced Thursday that 2,093 people had been arrested in the crackdown and that 692 had been released. This is the first time the secretive junta has released any numbers on its arrests during the crackdown.

One of those released on Thursday is an employee of the United Nations in Myanmar, Myint Ngwe Mon, who was taken from her home with her husband, her brother-in-law and her driver on Wednesday. Their release was confirmed by Charles Petrie, the most senior official for the United Nations in the country, but no further details were available about the reasons for her detention and release.

David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with the international rights group Human Rights Watch, said the junta’s numbers on its arrests “seem very plausible.” He added, “That’s certainly very similar to what we’ve been hearing.”

Mr. Mathieson said he believed that the junta’s new public statements were a result of pressure from neighboring countries, including China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“I think it’s a reflection of pressure coming from the outside,” he said.

Pressure has also been applied by the United Nations. During his meeting with the leader of the junta, Mr. Gambari, the United Nations envoy, asked that the government offer more information on the detentions, said Mr. Petrie, who was present in the meeting.

The junta has announced that 10 people were killed in the crackdown, a number that diplomats in Yangon, the country’s main city, and other analysts believe may be an underestimate.

Public pressure has come from the United States, which last week expanded its visa ban on Myanmar’s military leaders and their families, and from the European Union, which on Wednesday agreed in principle to toughen sanctions against Myanmar.

The public reaction from China, which is thought to have the most sway over Myanmar’s generals, has been more restrained. A statement by the spokesman of China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday praised the “mediation” by the United Nations.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and General Than Shwe have met only a few times since elections in 1990, when Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory that was ignored by the generals.