BANGKOK—U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Burma on Monday to stop arresting dissidents even as the military junta vowed to plough on with its "roadmap to democracy" regardless of widespread international criticism.
"We will go ahead. We will not deviate from our path," the official New Light of Myanmar said in a commentary on the generals' seven-point masterplan, unveiled in 2003, to chart a course towards civilian government after 45 years of army rule.
"Those who sincerely want to hold hands with us are welcome," the paper continued in uncompromising tone. "We will get rid of the barriers and obstacles on the way."
Gambari, in Bangkok at the start of a regional tour to drum up support for a coordinated front against the junta, said actions spoke louder than words–and that the continued arrests and intimidation of activists were "extremely disturbing".
"These actions must stop at once," he told reporters after a one-hour meeting with Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram.
"I'm more concerned about what they're doing, not what they're saying," Gambari said. "The United Nations calls on the Myanmar government to release all political detainees, including those arrested during the demonstrations."
After Thailand, Gambari heads for Malaysia, India and China–all of them trading partners of Burma so far opposed to any sanctions, the tactic preferred by Western governments.
Gambari will also travel to Tokyo, where emotions are still high at the shooting of a Japanese journalist, one of at least 10 people killed in Yangon, the former Burma's main city, when soldiers crushed the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years.
Burma official media described the death of Kenji Nagai as "an accident or an unfortunate incident", but said the 50-year-old cameraman was partly to blame.
"He came to the country on a tourist visa and acted like a journalist dishonestly," the New Light said. "One who entered the country on a tourist visa should act like a tourist."
Video footage smuggled out of the former Burma, which routinely denies foreign reporters media visas, appeared to show Nagai being shot dead at point blank range by a soldier.
Stick and carrot
On Monday, the European Union is due to consider widening its sanctions from the existing asset freezes, travel bans and limited commercial embargoes to include trade in timber, gems and precious metals–all major junta money-spinners.
However, in an opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British counterpart David Milliband said it was important to offer incentives as well threats.
"The EU needs to consider a package of positive measures to the Burmese people should the regime show its willingness to genuinely work for reconciliation," they wrote.
Despite unprecedented international outrage at the crackdown, including a rare call for "restraint" from main ally China, the junta has been cranking up the pressure on the domestic front.
At the weekend, they brought stage-managed government rallies to Yangon, where tens of thousands of people were taken by bus to a sports stadium to applaud the democracy plan and a constitution-drafting National Convention.
Police, still raiding homes more than two weeks after the demonstrations were crushed, also arrested Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist in an uprising in 1988 who had managed to evade capture for nearly two months.
Htay Kywe's "88 Generation Students Group" was the brains behind mid-August's small fuel-price protests that quickly snowballed into a nationwide movement, spearheaded by the revered Buddhist monkhood, against military rule.
In a rare concession at the height of the crackdown, Senior General Than Shwe admitted Gambari for an audience with himself and two short meetings with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Gambari is slated to return to Burma in November, but said he hoped his Asia tour would demonstrate such a united regional front that he might be granted a visa sooner.
"We believe that if we pool all our efforts, we could move the situation in Myanmar in the right direction," he said.
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