Envoy: Restrictions on UN work in Myanmar should be lifted

Feb 17, 2012, 7:36 GMT

Yangon - The international community should lift restrictions on UN programmes in Myanmar to support its government's reforms, a visiting senior UN official said Friday.

'Now is the time to step up support and to adjust existing policies in order to help build conditions for sustaining the reform and for the betterment of Myanmar's peoples,' said Vijay Nambiar, special adviser on Myanmar to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

'It is urgent that the government delivers on the socio-economic needs of the people so that they start benefiting in real terms from the reforms so far,' he said at the end of a five-day visit to Myanmar.

The statement seemed directed at the United States, which is the largest contributor to the UN budget at 22 per cent and which has blocked UN agencies in Myanmar from working directly with the government for the past two decades. The restrictions were meant to punish the former ruling military junta for its poor human rights record and refusal to make political reforms.

The civilian, albeit pro-military government that came to power in March after the country's first elections in 20 years has pushed through a series of political and economic reforms that have prompted a flood of high-levels visits to the once-pariah state.

'The changes currently under way in Myanmar have attained an unprecedented level of initiative as recognized by a range of stakeholders across the political spectrum,' Nambiar said as he prepared to leave Myanmar after talks with President Thein Sein, legislative Speaker Shwe Mann and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party are contesting an April 1 by-election for 48 parliamentary seats.

Western democracies have set the outcome of the polls as an important benchmark for Myanmar's reform programme and determining whether to normalize relations and drop econmomic sanctions on the country.

Read more about UN