Burma has ordered Charles Petrie, the top UN diplomat in that country, to leave in advance of Gambari's six day trip that starts today, The New York Times reports.
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Have also posted this article (below) under "Breaking News" along with NY Times article from Saturday re Charles Petrie.
UN Envoy Returns to Myanmar
Published: 11/3/07, 7:25 AM EDT
By GILLIAN WONG
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari arrived in Myanmar on Saturday for his second effort to reconcile the ruling military and its pro-democracy opponents. But he will also have to deal with the junta's plan to expel the top U.N. diplomat in the country.
Gambari flew directly to the new capital, Naypyitaw, to meet with senior junta leaders, Myanmar government officials said, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to the media.
It was not known which of the junta leaders would meet with him in Naypyitaw, 250 miles north of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, or whether he would later be allowed to visit detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
On the eve of his arrival, the junta accused Myanmar's U.N. Resident Coordinator Charles Petrie of going beyond his duties by criticizing the regime's failure to meet the economic and humanitarian needs of its people, and by saying this was the cause of September's mass pro-democracy protests, which were violently put down by the government.
Gambari was earlier dispatched to Myanmar after the government crackdown, meeting with junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe and twice with Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate.
Eyewitnesses in Yangon said security forces had been reinforced in some parts of the city prior to the visit, while residents said access to the Internet was virtually impossible for the third-straight day.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who met Gambari on Friday morning in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss his Myanmar trip, was "disappointed" at the government's message, and expressed "full confidence in the United Nations country team and its leadership," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said at U.N. headquarters in New York.
She said Petrie was scheduled to meet Gambari in Yangon on Saturday, and that the U.N. envoy would convey to Myanmar's military rulers the secretary-general's "very strong" support for the U.N. leadership in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
On Friday, a draft resolution was circulated at the U.N. strongly condemning the Myanmar government's crackdown on peaceful protesters. It called on the junta to immediately release those arrested recently, as well as all political prisoners.
The military has said 10 people were killed in the September crackdown, but diplomats and dissidents say the death toll was much higher. Thousands of people were detained.
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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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