Security Council Action Against Burma Unlikely

UNITED NATIONS — Despite a decision to conduct an unprecedented open U.N. Security Council debate on Friday on the recent atrocities in Burma, diplomats here say it is doubtful that the divided world organization will take any action.

The council is expected to hold a public hearing on the Burmese military leaders' recent crackdown on unarmed demonstrators, including their murder by the hundreds, and the arrest and torture of thousands of other Burmese citizens, including U.N. employees. Nevertheless, the council is under increased pressure to act. In Congress, Senator Feinstein, a Democrat of California, and Minority Leader McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky, are leading a campaign to bring democracy to Burma, on the heels of President Bush's speech at the U.N. General Assembly last week. On Friday, actor Jim Carrey is expected to participate in a press conference across from the United Nations and call on the council to take action.

Secretary-General Ban and his envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who returned yesterday from a four-day mission to Burma, will lead the council briefing. In Burma, Mr. Gambari met with the junta leader, General Than Shwe, as well as with the jailed democracy advocate and elected leader of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi. Since Mr. Gambari's departure, however, the regime has made further arrests and there have been fresh reports of military atrocities.

Burmese state-run television announced yesterday that the generals were ready to meet with Ms. Suu Kyi, as long as she promised to abandon any "obstructive measures" and to denounce any support for the imposition of outside sanctions against the regime.

Last week, Washington announced a new set of travel and economic restrictions against Burma, and the European Union also is expected to add to its existing sanctions. China and its allies, however, say they will oppose any punitive measures sanctioned by the Security Council.

"Let China publicly oppose an arms embargo against this regime," the director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Jeremy Woodrum, said.

The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, told The New York Sun yesterday that this is exactly what he intends to do. "The situation down there is a problem, it's a crisis," he said. But a "solution has to be found by the Myanmars themselves. No internationally imposed solution can help the situation."

Mr. Wang dismissed a recent statement by a regional group of countries, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that the situation in Burma is destabilizing for the region. The statement was intended merely to maintain ASEAN's "credibility," he said, adding events in Burma present no threat to international peace and security, a condition for council action.

"This is a big step for the Security Council to have, for the first time, a public briefing of this kind," a spokesman for the American mission to the United Nations, Benjamin Chang, said. Washington, he added, believes that the unrest in Burma does represent a threat to the region and beyond. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the acting American representative in Burma will join other foreign diplomats for a meeting called by the junta leaders in their newly created capital, Naypyidaw, on Friday.