U.N. rights envoy visiting Myanmar

Human rights activists have demanded Aung San Suu Kyi be given a role in governing Myanmar

By CNN's Craig Francis

YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- A U.N. human rights envoy has begun a three-day visit to Yangon during which he will hold talks with Myanmar's ruling military junta.

The meeting -- the first of its kind in five years -- is being seen as the latest indicator of a political shift within the internationally isolated regime.

Myanmar generals had already begun meeting behind closed doors with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while talks between Thai and Myanmar officials to discuss border issues began Monday after a two year suspension.

Brazilian academic Paulo Sergio Pinheiro received the green light to fly into Myanmar's capital Yangon just two months after his appointment as U.N. rapporteur.

Myanmar's junta never allowed Pinheiro's predecessor, Mauritian judge Rajsoomer Lallah, who took the job in 1996, to visit the country, accusing him of being unfairly critical of the regime.

But the Foreign Ministry said last week that Pinheiro was being welcomed because he seemed to be "pragmatic and non-biased."

As well as Burma's military leaders, Pinheiro is expected to meet the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Power-sharing

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won Myanmar's most recent elections in 1990 by a landslide, but has never been allowed to govern.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since September, with access to her tightly controlled.

The talks with Aung San Suu Kyi have rekindled hopes that the two sides may be able to negotiate a power-sharing agreement and a longed-for transition to democracy after a decade of political deadlock.

Fourteen opposition NLD politicians were released over the weekend in an apparent gesture of goodwill towards the forthcoming talks with the U.N. envoy.

Myanmar dissidents have said they fear the current rounds of talks with international communities are merely designed to avert criticism from the military junta.

The last U.N. report, in October, accused the military government of torturing, raping and executing civilians, particularly members of ethnic minority groups.

The United States' annual report on global human rights, released in February, grouped Myanmar with Cuba and North Korea as one of the world's three worst countries for human rights abuses.

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