Irrawaddy-May 9
The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar was blocked by the country’s junta from attending a meeting on humanitarian assistance for the Southeast Asian nation, which has been devastated by last year’s military coup. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday held the meeting in Cambodia to discuss plans to deliver aid to Myanmar. The regime was represented by its Minister for International Cooperation Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s point man on provision of assistance to Myanmar. Absent from the meeting in Phnom Penh was Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar. According to the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), a group of former UN experts on Myanmar, and the group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, her attendance was blocked by the junta.
“She was invited and then disinvited,” SAC-M said in a statement. The reason she was banned from the meeting was not clear, but it appears likely the move was prompted by her recent meetings with the parliamentary body of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and its relief and resettlement minister Dr Win Myat Aye. Heyzer has turned out to be the first international envoy to publicly engage with the NUG. The SAC-M said there are 14 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, while an estimated 800,000 people are displaced inside the country. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/junta-bars-un-special-envoy-on-myanmar-from-asean-meeting.html
