Burmese Leader Says He Would Meet Detained Laureate, With Preconditions

RANGOON, Burma, Oct. 4 -- The head of Burma's military junta told a U.N. envoy this week that he is willing to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time, but only with certain preconditions, state media reported Thursday.

It also said that nearly 2,100 people were arrested in last week's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists and that almost 700 had been released.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe told U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during their talks Tuesday that he is willing to meet Suu Kyi if she gives up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions on it, Burma's state television and radio reported.

Than Shwe told Gambari that "in her dealings with the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions," state media said.

"If she abandons these calls, Senior General Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the media said. Daw is a term of respect for older women.

Suu Kyi has said in the past that she supports economic sanctions against the military junta, but she has not publicly called for devastation of her homeland or the government.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's offer. "Applying such conditions shows that the government is not really sincere to meet her," he said. NLD executives are allowed no contact with Suu Kyi.

The junta has regularly called on Suu Kyi to give up what it calls her confrontational attitude, but this was the first time the junta leader has said he is willing to meet with her.

Than Shwe is widely believed to have a visceral dislike for the Nobel Peace laureate. By some accounts, he gets angry at the mention of her name. Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is not known to have met a senior junta leader since 2002.

Her party won national elections in 1990, but the generals refused to give up power.

Gambari on Tuesday ended a four-day trip to Burma in a bid to persuade the junta to end its crackdown on pro-democracy activists. He was scheduled to brief U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday.

Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price increase, then grew when monks took the lead last month. But the military crushed the protests with gunfire, tear gas and clubs starting Sept. 26. The government said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the death toll as high as 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of monks.

Soldiers maintained a visible presence Thursday on the streets of Rangoon.

Meanwhile, a U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were freed Thursday, a day after being arrested, said Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Burma.