allAfrica.com: Nigeria: My Mission to Myanmar Has Not Failed

Ibrahim Agboola Gambari has a rich background on military interregnums. Having served as a Minister under a despotic regime in Nigeria, the United Nations Secretary General has no scruples in appointing him the Special Envoy to the country when the military bore their fags there, for the umpteenth time last September. But three visits on and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs has not been able to break the ice. The monks are still rebellious, political prisoners like, just as Suu Kyi, has not been granted reprieve. At the last visit, the junta was more adamant. But before you write him off, the Professor of Political Science says all hope should not be lost yet in this interview. Appointed by former Secretary General Kofi Annan on 10 June 2005, as replacement for Kieran Prendergast, Gambari has held the positions of Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa at the United Nations and Nigeria's Permanent Representative at the global body. In these capacities, his functions included promoting UN and international support for African development, in general, and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). He also served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola, from September 2002 to February 2003. Gambari served as President of the Security Council on two occasions when Nigeria was a member of the Security Council. He also chaired the UN Special Committee against Apartheid, which successfully saw the demise of apartheid and the establishment of democratic rule in South Africa. Prior to his tenure as Ambassador/Permanent Representative, he was at different times Minister of External Affairs of Nigeria and Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. He is a recipient of the national honour, Commander of Federal Republic (CFR). Born 64 years ago, Prof Gambari attended Kings College, Lagos , the London School of Economics, and received his M.A. in 1970 and Ph.D. in 1974 in Political Science/International Relations from Columbia University in New York . He taught at different Universities in Nigeria and abroad, authored several books and contributed scholarly articles on international relations and foreign policy. The scholar-diplomat spoke with LEADERSHIP's Emmanuel Bello, on Saturday in Abuja. Excerpts:.

Your Excellency what is the situation in Myanmar, where you are the UN Secretary General's Special Representative?

Thank you very much for that question. You see, after my tenure as Nigerian Ambassador to the UN, the then Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, said to me that "it took you a lot of experience on African issues and the UN as a whole, so I would like to have you stay back at the secretariat as a Special Adviser on African affairs at the level of an Under Secretary-General that was in 1999, December to be precise. So in that process, I was sent to Angola to help return peace to that country. I am very happy that the objective was achieved. I must tell you that I was the last Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN mission in that country, who also brought about peace in Angola. In fact I was Joint chairman of the Joint Commission between the two factions in that country and the peace treaty that was signed under my leadership has since then remained in force. And no one has violated it since 2002. So I can say I was privileged and proud as well. So my schedule included conflict issues, which I was dealing with while serving in that capacity. Then in July of 2005, Mr. Kofi Annan did something remarkable, by appointing me Under Secretary General and as head of the Political Department, a political organisation, though it has other functions but more of a political body, so whoever heads the Political Department is more or less the number two man at the secretariat.

Although there is the Deputy Secretary General, but if you accept the fact that the organisation is essentially political, then head of Political Department is second in the leadership of the body Working in that capacity under Mr. Annan, I was exposed to none African issues, dealing with Myanmar, Cyprus, Iraq, Kosovo, and Colombia in the Latin America. Then there was change of administration, in July of 2007, when Kofi Annan left and Ban Ki-moon came in and re-assigned me as Special Adviser on International compact on Iraq and other political issues. Then, in May last year, he then appointed me as Special Adviser on Myanmar.

Now what are the issues in Myanmar?

The issues and the problems of democratisation, human rights and that of development. Kofi Annan has always maintained that without peace, there can never be development. Secondly, that without sustainable development, there can be no peace; and the third dimension, with human peace there's development, there is the nexus between human right and peace, and there are very few countries that these issues are major challenges, like Myanmar .The last time they had election was 1990, 18 years ago. That was the last time that that country know what election was, and that election was won by National League for Democracy (NLD). It is a political party led by an icon known as Aung San Suu Kyi, a daughter of the founding father of the nation, won the election was cancelled. Since then, she has been under house arrest, something like our 1993 election. It was an election that she clearly won but was cancelled and she has been kept under house arrest for 12 years out of the 18 years. So the international community, each year at the UN, passes resolution, asking for a fast return to democracy in Myanmar. The world demand greater respect for human rights and of course for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. So it was based on this that the Secretary General mandated me to take up this, I have since engaged in a shuttle diplomacy between UN and Myanmar. I talked with the ruling junta as well as the opposition. As it is now, the international community and particularly the matter. I get a lot of support from them, especially the Asian countries and Myanmar neighbours - all working and assisting me on behalf of the Secretary General to help them move fast towards democracy in that country, to achieve greater respect for human rights, because we believe that without these, there would neither be peace or development in the country. It has been very difficult because these military people have an approach is not to talk to but to crush the opposition. But our recommendation is to dialogue with the opposition. You would understand that theirs is unlike military regimes that we had in West Africa, where the military invited civilians to be ministers. All the ministers there are military people. The last time they had election was 18 years ago, so they have what they call seven steps roadmap. First they will have a national convention which will lead to the re-writing of their constitution. Then in their view, there will be a refresher, then followed by election, and then hand over to a civilian government and then finally, a total disengagement. But unfortunately, the first, which is national convention, guess how long it took? 14 years. They just finished last December, a constitution drafting committee just finished its work. They are now moving to the refresher stage in May and election which they have announced for 2010. So you see that our achievement since intervening is that we have moved them from the slow speed journey to democracy, where the first step took them 14 years to about 3 or 4 steps with elections coming up in 2010, that is on the positive, but on the down side, number one, the Constitution Drafting Committee was hand picked and not broad enough.

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