By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Last week's huge protests against military rule and deepening poverty in Myanmar give U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari a rare chance to wring concessions from a junta that has never liked to admit failings, his predecessor said.

"There's no way they can deny they've got problems that must be looked at," Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail told Reuters as Gambari waited on Tuesday for an audience with junta leader Than Shwe in his remote new capital, Naypyidaw.

"They can't deny that any more," he said of a country that was the rice bowl of Asia on independence from Britain in 1948 and is now one of the continent's poorest despite its wealth of natural resources, including abundant natural gas.

Having spent nearly six years as the United Nations' point man on Myanmar, negotiating face-to-face with one of the world's most isolated regimes when it let him, Razali knows what former Nigerian foreign minister Gambari is up against.

If the junta's track record is anything to go by, he would have flown in on Saturday with no firm schedule or itinerary -- despite shouldering the concerns of the world at a bloody crackdown on the biggest pro-democracy protests in 20 years.

"You are never told who you are going to meet. You are just told the government is going to receive you," said Razali, who quit in January 2006 in frustration at being denied a visa for 23 months in a row.

Gambari's first meeting was at the airport with the Chinese ambassador, a sign Beijing may be trying to play midwife at the birth of a U.N.-backed reconciliation process despite its close commercial and military ties to the current crop of generals.

He then flew straight to Naypyidaw, 240 miles (385 km) north of Yangon, for meetings with acting Prime Minister Thein Sein -- fourth in the junta hierarchy -- and the information and culture ministers.

He flew back to Yangon, the former capital -- Myanmar's biggest city and focus of protests against 45 years of military rule that spread to many towns before Than Shwe sent in the troops -- for an hour with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Even though he did not meet Than Shwe, his immediate departure again for Naypyidaw, a half-finished city carved out of the jungle, ignited hopes of nascent "shuttle diplomacy" between the junta and those wanting an end to military rule.

Gambari's apparent disappearance on Monday -- most Yangon diplomats had no idea where he was -- did not augur well, although he was promised a meeting with Than Shwe on Tuesday.

Razali said not to read too much into what might appear to be a departure from a conventional script. "He's a very seasoned diplomat and I'm sure he knows what he has to do," he said.

"CHARMING" SENIOR GENERAL

When Gambari does get his tete-a-tete with Than Shwe, he can expect a handshake and smile even though his presence and questions will irk the Senior General, as the bespectacled 74-year-old is formally titled.

"Than Shwe can be very charming and friendly when he wants to be," said Razali, who met Than Shwe half a dozen times.

"He speaks English quite well and they try to be hospitable when you are there, but they don't like intrusiveness. They don't like you asking about things that they consider to be their internal affairs."

However, the protests led by Buddhist monks -- the biggest threat to army rule since an uprising crushed ruthlessly in 1988 -- mean Gambari's mission will have to be taken seriously, rather than dismissed as more Western whingeing about human rights.

"It's clear now that it's about more than human rights. It's about national reconciliation," Razali said. "It's about a country that is smack in the centre of Asia but which is unable to grow because of policies that are wrong."

Nobody is under any illusions about a quick fix to the former Burma's problems, but if Gambari can use the now undeniably dire state of the economy to convince the generals at least to talk to their detractors, he will have done a good job, Razali said.

"He should be able to set up a structure for further talks that will involve all aspects, especially on how to get all the parties in Myanmar to talk together," he said. "If he can get that agreement, it will be a significant achievement."

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