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U.N. Envoy Investigates Myanmar Crackdown

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By AYE AYE WIN, The Associated Press

Published: November 12, 2007

YANGON, Myanmar - A United Nations human rights envoy entered Myanmar for the first time in four years Sunday on a mission to uncover how many people were killed and detained since September's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s independent rights investigator for Myanmar, has said he is determined to gain access to the country's prisons and detention centers as part of an investigation into allegations of abuses committed by the military regime.

Pinheiro had been barred from the country since November 2003. He submitted a proposed itinerary to the ruling junta before arriving in the country for a five-day trip, but it was being "fine-tuned," Aye Win, the U.N. spokesman in Myanmar, said Sunday.

Accompanied by authorities, Pinheiro's first stop in Myanmar was the town of Bago, 50 miles north of Yangon, the U.N. said in a statement. Buddhist monasteries in Bago were among those targeted by the crackdown after monks joined anti-govern- ment protests.

Pinheiro then returned to Yangon to meet officials at Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's most revered shrine and a flashpoint of unrest during the protests.

The junta has come under renewed international pressure since crushing the demonstrations. Myanmar authorities have said 10 people were killed when troops opened fire on peaceful protesters in Yangon on Sept. 26 and 27. Diplomats and dissidents, however, say the death toll was much higher and that an unknown number of people remain in custody.

Pinheiro cited unidentified sources as saying last month that between 30 and 40 monks and 50 to 70 civilians were allegedly killed.

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