The UN Security Council haggled today over the text of a statement condemning a detention sentence passed on Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday.
"We've made some further progress," British Ambassador John Sawers, current Security Council president, told reporters after meeting fellow envoys from the United States, France, Russia and China.
"We've still got some more work to do. We believe we're moving in the right direction."
China today said the world should respect Burma's judicial sovereignty and called for continued dialogue, but it urged non-interference from the outside world, suggesting Beijing would not back any United Nations action against the country.
"There was considerable support for the principle of a statement, but a number of delegations wanted to refer it back to their capitals overnight for advice and instructions," Mr Sawers said of the Security Council meeting yesterday.
Diplomats said the countries concerned were China, Vietnam, Russia and Libya. China, which has a veto in the council, has consistently opposed tough action such as sanctions against its neighbour and trade partner Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi (64), a Nobel peace laureate, was sentenced to 18 months of house detention for violating an internal security law after an uninvited American visited her house where she was already under detention. The the junta said immediately after yesterday's verdict it would halve the sentence and allow her to serve the time at her Rangoon home.
The verdict will keep her off the political stage through elections the military government has set for next year.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party condemned the ruling because it was based on a law from Burma’s 1974 constitution, no longer in use. "Passing such judgment is not in accordance with the law. It is, moreover, tantamount to violating human rights. We therefore condemn it in the strongest terms," the NLD said in a statement.
Yesterday's council meeting considered a US-drafted statement that "condemns the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and expresses grave concern about the political impact this action has on the situation in Myanmar [the military's junta's term for Burma]."
The 16-line draft called for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners and demanded that the junta "establish the conditions and create an atmosphere conducive to an inclusive and credible political and electoral process with full participation of all political actors."
"We think there has to be a reaction by the Security Council," French envoy Jean-Pierre Lacroix told journalists. "The verdict is in clear violation and breach of the request made by the Security Council."
Earlier, a statement issued by the office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently visiting his native South Korea, said he "strongly deplores" Ms Suu Kyi's sentence and called for her release.
It said Mr Ban, who visited Burma last month in a fruitless bid to win Ms Suu Kyi's release, urged the junta to "engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation."
Fourteen Nobel peace laureates sent an open letter to the Council yesterday urging it to set up a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity they said the junta had committed in Burma.
Critics have dismissed the trial as a ploy by the junta to keep Ms Suu Kyi off the campaign trail ahead of next year's multi-party elections, the first since 1990, when the NLD's landslide win was ignored by the generals.
Burma’s junta insist next year's elections will be free and fair and will pave the way for a civilian government. Critics dismiss the polls as an attempt to legitimise army rule.
The charges stemmed from American John Yettaw's two-day uninvited stay at Ms Suu Kyi's lakeside home in May, which the judge said that breached her house arrest terms.
Mr Yettaw, who had told the court that God sent him to warn Ms Suu Kyi she would be assassinated, was sentenced to seven years' hard labour in a parallel trial on three charges, including immigration offences and "swimming in a non-swimming area".
Reuters