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.

Secondly, it has excluded Aung San Sun Kyi and the opposition from participating. They said because she is married to a foreigner, that her husband, a British (who anyway is dead), and that she has children who are half British but are not in Myanmar. So my position on behalf of the Secretary General: we did not criticised the roadmap, but observed that the roadmap has some deficiencies. But that we will help them in the implementation so that it can be all-inclusive and also credible. My last visit was a very difficult one, but I said to them: look, to make your referendum and election credible, decimate it widely. Nobody has seen the draft of the constitution. It was only while I was there, that they gave me a copy of the draft, and it is a crime for you to criticise the constitution.

So we have to de-criminalised contrary views to the constitution. You have to allow Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners to participate. You have to release them. It is our believe that if people are not allowed access to the media, it would harm the credibility, because provisions of the constitution are not comfortable with many. For instance, the president can appoint the Chief of Army but cannot sack him. And that some 25% percentage of seats in the parliament are reserved for the military. Some ministers such as Defence, Home Affairs External Affairs and others, they would be nominated for the president to appoint. So these issues should be debated before people can either say yes or no. We then said that we will offer technical assistance to them, because UN offers technical assistance to member states. In the last two years, 57 countries requested technical assistance to conduct elections and we obliged.

So we said it would be in your own national interest, sovereignty and right to ask for such assistance, which we will consider and by so doing, the process will have credibility. Also we suggested that the process should have independent monitors. Those were the recommendations that we made. We did that not just on the political grounds. Because the root causes of the discontent of the people is not just political but economic as well, so we made recommendations on the economy. People in the country are the poorest amongst South-east Asia despite it's rich oil, timber and other resources. These were the recommendations that I conveyed the last time I visited. Remember that, there was a big demonstration by the monks and there were killings. I went there to try and mediate between government and opposition because I believe that dialogue is the key, and they allowed me to see her several times. So that is a sign that dialogue is on-going, though not very well… but on. The authorities welcomed UN engagement, because we persuade, we talk, we encourage, we don't force implementation. We also offer practical suggestions on how to deal with these social issues. For instance, we suggested the establishment of Poverty Alleviation Commission. They did not like the word, poverty. You know because they are very porous people, the military always think they are the only "super patriots," and the Myanmar authorities are very proud people. My last visit was the most disappointing because they rejected the ideal of technical assistance, they rejected the ideal of independent monitors, and they also rejected that of national economic reform. So my job now is to persuade them to take a second look at these. I hope to meet with them in a third country around May; that's in a month, because if they go ahead with the referendum, which without Kyi National League for Democracy have decided to advise their members to vote no to. So if the constitution is passed the opposition will have problem with it. If it is defeated where do we go from there? And don't forget that it took 14 years to realise the first step. So those are the challenges facing us.

It then means that the stage has been set for some major crisis again?

Yes, that is why to prevent that from happening they should talk with her and see how they can work together. Frankly, I said to them that if you continue to put her under detention and not regard her as a partner, think about the future of your country. But they have not said no yet. So the talks are not at the substantive level yet. So my advice has been that Suu Kyi who enjoys enormous support across the country including the 18 ethnic nationalities, she should be dialogued with and I warned that keeping her in detention will continue to be part of their problem. Her detention would make the international community believe that the dialogue for national reconciliation is not all - inclusive, it would also shows that the regime is vindictive and thirdly the credibility of the outcome would both externally and internally raise questions.

Do you think they would ever sit down with her for dialogue?

Well, I don't think they have any other alternative than talking with hers. Anything on the contrary will escalate crisis, and I have talked to her. She is prepared for talks, so long as such talks are open and time bound, not something endless. In my view, it is now timely, because of the referendum and the 2010 elections.

The UN seems to have faced several problems, especially with the invasion of Iraq by the US which Mr. Annan's position and many others was not too satisfying to the US. In view of this, what do you make of the invasion?

Kofi Annan was very clear on the issue of Iraq, which was that it was better to have UN endorse such actions before they are embarked upon by any country, no matter how powerful the country is, because that is what multilaterism is all about and because if every country chooses to do anything it likes to resolve problem, it would create more trouble than solution. If you remember, the first Iraqi war during the senior Bush era, the Security Council, endorsed the coalition that attacked Iraq and from what we said, the result was quite different. But now, what do you have? The then Secretary General was far-sighted, because when there is crisis as a result of the aftermath you take up the whole burden. You need to know the billions that the war now costs the Americans. Only few countries are funding. So it would be a burden sharing and also better to employ multilateral approach to international issues such as this. UN has suffered a lot because we have more than 20 people, including Head of the UN mission in our compound that was attacked. UN is been equated with the US, and that is not good for the UN. Neither is it good for the US. We are now there as UN to try and ameliorate the consequences of that bad decision. So one of my jobs is to promote international compact on Iraq which has two components: the compact between Iraq and the international community and in return the international community should see to terms of debt relief for Iraq, capacity building for Iraq, because sometimes even when they have money. They cannot spend the money because most of their structures are down. And third of course is resources for a rebuild. Now in return for that, Iraqis as part of the compact are going to deliver on three key areas, namely: economy, that is, carry out economic reforms, second, security to work towards reduction of the level of violence in the country, and three is political, that is the promotion of national reconciliation between the major ethnic groupings. That is the Shiite and the Sunnis and so on. So the Secretary General has appointed me to help him implement the international compact on Iraq of which he is the co-chair, while the other co-chair is the Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq. This initiative was arrived at in Egypt last year and we shall be having an annual review of the initiative. We shall be meeting on May 29 to review the progress made so far. But I must tell you that on our part, we are making a lot of progress, as more and more countries are writing off Iraq debts, but Iraqis are very slow in the implementation. On the reform agenda, yes, they seem to be making some progress but on national reconciliation, there has not been much in this direction. So the issue of what should have been done is overtaken.

But is it not time to pull out yet?

That's for the US to decide. And the Iraqis, ironically. The neighbouring countries do not want the Americans there but they have realised that if they pull out immediately the chaos and the confusion will spread. That is why the United Nations is holding a neighbours' ministerial conference, one of such conferences took place recently by bringing Iran, Syria to see how everybody could be brought together towards trying to contain the situation in Iraq.