U.N. envoy meets Myanmar's Suu Kyi again

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had 50 minutes of talks with visiting U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Monday, her second meeting with him in two days, witnesses said.

U.N. officials gave no details of Gambari's discussions with the Nobel laureate, who was taken from the state guest house where they met back to the lakeside Yangon villa where she has been under house arrest since May 2003.

The Nigerian diplomat was due to leave the former Burma on Monday evening, ending his third visit since September's brutally crushed pro-democracy marches.

However, an Information Ministry source said Gambari would have another meeting with Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, the highest-ranking official he has met during his four-day trip.

Gambari has had little to show for his efforts to get the junta to include Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) in its plans to cede political control in a seven-step "roadmap to democracy."

In singularly blunt language, the generals spurned his offer of observers for May's constitutional referendum and elections in 2010, redoubling concerns about the freedom and fairness of both polls.

They also said they had no need for external expertise in running the elections, saying they had "enough experience."

The last time they allowed elections, in 1990, they were forced to ignore the result when Suu Kyi's party won more than 80 percent of the vote.

The crackdown against last September's protests sparked worldwide outrage and a major diplomatic push for political reform in the former British colony, which has been under military rule since 1962.