The United Nations asked Southeast Asia on Wednesday for action rather than just tough words to push military-ruled Burma (officially known as Myanmar) towards democracy after its bloodiest crackdown in almost 20 years.
"We appreciated very much the very strong statements coming out of ASEAN," special envoy Ibrahim Gambari said in Malaysia, a key player in the Association of South East Asian Nations, which expressed unprecedented "revulsion" at the junta's behaviour.
"But now is the time to work together so that the good offices role of the secretary-general can deliver concrete results," he told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Malaysia is the second leg of Gambari's regional tour to drum up support for a united front against the generals in Asia, where governments are loathe to impose sanctions because of trade and investment ties and a lust for Burma's huge energy reserves.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown held out the threat of investment sanctions against Burma on Wednesday, after the European Union agreed this week to broaden sanctions that include visa bans and assets freezes on the generals and steps against the country's key timber, metals and gemstone sectors.
"The Burmese regime must know that unless they change we will step up the sanctions against their regime," he said.
Official media say 10 people were killed when soldiers crushed last month's monk-led demonstrations against 45 years of military rule, but Western governments say the toll is likely to be much higher.
A Buddhist monk has been jailed for 7-½ years for taking part in the mass protests, a monastic source said on Wednesday, the first monk known to have been sentenced for his part in the protests.
Eik Darea, 25, was sentenced by a district court in Sittwe, the capital of the northwestern state of Rakhine where there was a spate of protests, although on a smaller scale than in Yangon. The monk was defrocked and could end up in a labour camp.
The crackdown ended the protests, which started against shock fuel price rises in mid-August, but three weeks later the raids and round-ups are continuing despite a plea from Gambari in Bangkok on Monday for them to stop.
On Wednesday, the New Light of Myanmar, the junta's main mouthpiece, said 2,459 people of 2,927 detained across the country had been released -- leaving 468 in custody, a figure human rights and exile groups suspect is probably too low.
On the Run
In a rare sop to international concern, Senior General Than Shwe has agreed to meet detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he is widely known to loathe.
However, his preconditions -- that the 62-year-old Nobel laureate abandon "confrontation" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation" -- cast doubts on the sincerity of his offer.
But dissidents on the run inside the former Burma called on China and Russia to allow a blanket U.N. Security Council arms and investment ban to try to force the junta towards democratic reform. Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to heed the cry.
In a letter written from hiding to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, three members of the "88 Generation Students Group" said the generals were duping the U.N. into thinking they were serious about compromising with Suu Kyi.
"This may be the last letter we send to you before our own arrest and torture and we send it with the utmost urgency," the trio -- Tun Myint Aung, Nilar Thein and Soe Htun -- wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters in Bangkok.
The '88 group were student activists who led a major anti-junta uprising in 1988 that was eventually crushed by the army with the loss of an estimated 3,000 lives. They were also behind the initial fuel price protests in mid-August.
Nearly all the leading lights in the group, most of whom spent years behind bars in the 1990s, were the first to be arrested in the latest crackdown.
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