Pressure is mounting on the United Nation's Special Envoy to Burma to deliver results, with a London-based advocacy group preparing to label his mission as failed.

 

Barring any drastic changes in the Burmese junta's responses to overtures from Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations Special Envoy to Burma, The Burma Campaign UK believes it will be time to acknowledge his efforts as failed and commence with a different approach.
The Special Envoy is expected to arrive in Burma tomorrow.

 

"If Gambari comes back with anything less than a date for genuine talks with Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic groups, and a commitment for the release of all political prisoners, then his mission has failed," voiced Anna Roberts, Director of Burma Campaign UK, yesterday.

 

"Burma's generals think they can carry on with business as usual, and sadly the UN's soft peddling has reinforced that impression," continued Roberts.

 

The organization proposes that Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, go himself to Burma and deliver a stern message to Burma's generals that the international community will no longer tolerate their dismissal of U.N. interests and ongoing human rights abuses.

 

The Burma Campaign UK contends that human rights abuses in Burma have "escalated dramatically" since September's Saffron Revolution.

 

To assist Ban in his efforts at spearheading the international approach, the group calls on the Security Council to arm the Secretary General with a binding resolution on the situation in Burma.

 

The strong language comes as the junta looks ever more likely to forge ahead with their exclusive "road-map" regardless of international and domestic pressure and opinion.

 

With a constitutional referendum scheduled for May, referred to by The Burma Campaign UK as a "sham," Gambari's third visit to the country since last year's widespread unrest is held to be his final chance at demonstrating that his mission is capable of fomenting meaningful change inside the country.

In January of 2007 China and Russia, both veto wielding members of the Security Council, voted against a resolution concerning Burma. However China and Russia did join other members of the Security Council in issuing a statement of condemnation later in the year.