YANGON - A U.N. envoy flew to Myanmar on Saturday to persuade its ruling generals to use talks instead of guns to end mass protests, but the U.S. expressed concern that Ibrahim Gambari had been moved away from troubled Yangon.
As Gambari arrived in the former capital Yangon, troops and riot police manned barricades in the area from which the pro-democracy protests have reverberated around the world. Police fired warning shots to disperse 100 protesting youths.
The U.N. representative, a former Nigerian foreign minister, made no comment on arrival as he went straight on to a flight to the generals' new capital, Naypyidaw, 240 miles (385 km) to the north.
"We have concerns that Mr. Gambari was swiftly moved from Rangoon (Yangon) to the new capital in the interior, far from population centres," White House National Security Council Spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement.
He urged the junta, which has ruled Myanmar for 45 years, to allow Gambari wide access to people, including religious leaders and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"He's the best hope we have. He is trusted on both sides," Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said of Gambari. "If he fails, then the situation can become quite dreadful."
Before heading to Yangon, Gambari said in Singapore he was going "to deliver a message from the secretary-general to the leadership, a message that is very much by the Security Council".
"I look forward to a very fruitful visit so that I can report progress on all fronts," Channel News Asia quoted him as saying.
Asked if he expected to meet Suu Kyi, Gambari said: "I expect to meet all the people that I need to meet."
So far, the junta appears to have ignored international clamour for a peaceful end to their crackdown on a mass uprising led by monks, the moral core of the Buddhist nation, which grew from small protests against shock fuel price rises in August.
Small groups gathered on Saturday to taunt and curse troops before scattering down alleys when they started to charge.
In one incident, police fired warning shots to disperse 100 youths shouting slogans and waving bright red "fighting peacock" flags, the emblem of student unions that led a 1988 uprising crushed when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people.
The junta says it is acting with restraint.
In practice, that has meant firing at crowds, raiding a dozen Yangon monasteries thought to be at the vanguard of the protests, detaining hundreds of monks and sealing off two pagodas marking the start and end points of the mass protests.
