Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Monday after he flew to Myanmar’s new jungle capital to persuade the junta to end its crackdown on the biggest pro-democracy protests in 20 years. The UN office in Yangon said he remained in the former Burma, but it gave no further details.

“He looks forward to meeting Senior General Than Shwe and other relevant interlocutors before the conclusion of his mission,” the UN said in a statement.

One diplomatic source said Gambari was being made to wait until Tuesday to meet junta supremo Than Shwe after he made his second trip in two days to the country’s new and remote capital Naypyidaw.

Gambari was allowed to meet detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for more than an hour on Sunday in Yangon to discuss anti-government protests.

But after going to Naypyidaw with hopes of meeting the junta leader on Monday, the envoy was taken on a government trip to Lashio, nearly 400 km north-east of the capital, for a workshop on EU-Asian relations. He will return to the capital on Tuesday to meet Than Shwe, the official said.

The delay does not augur well for Gambari’s mission, hastily arranged last week when the junta sent in soldiers to crush more than a week of monk-led mass protests against decades of military rule and deepening poverty in the former Burma.

The 74-year-old Senior General is frequently rumoured to be in poor health, but has a well-deserved reputation as a military hardliner who pays scant regard to the cares and concerns of the outside world.

The UN made clear on Sunday that Gambari did not plan to leave without seeing Than Shwe, whose troops are stationed on street corners across Yangon, making it impossible even for small crowds of demonstrators to assemble.

In a sign the junta was confident it had squeezed the life out of the uprising, barbed-wire barricades were removed from the Shewdagon Pagoda, rallying point for monks leading the marches.

Soldiers and government security men, however, were searching bags and people, and the Internet, through which images of the crackdown have reached the world, remained cut.