Wired News on Feb.26 & 27, '95

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on Feb.26 & 27, '95
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      BANGKOK, Feb 26 (Reuter) - Thailand has offered to act as mediator
between the Burmese military government and minority rebel groups to try and
end fighting in its neighbour, the Bangkok Post reported on Sunday. 

    Thai prime minister Chuan Leekpai said it was always Thailand's intention
to see the warring parties hold talks to restore peace, the Post reported. He
made his offer at a political rally in southern Thailand late on Saturday. 

    The Post also said deputy foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan gave Thailand's
full support to Karen refugees fleeing the fighting on humanitarian grounds.
He said the refugees would return home only when the situation there had
returned to normal and they had decided to go of their own free will. 

    A Burmese army offensive against the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) has
sent up to 10,000 ethnic Karen to Thailand as refugees since December. They
joined some 60,000 Karen already in Thai camps along the Thai-Burma border. 

    Normally cordial relations between Thailand and Burma have been strained
after Rangoon launched the offensive against the autonomy-seeking Karen
guerrillas in southeastern Burma. 

    Karen guerrillas on Tuesday withdrew under fire from Kawmoora, their last
defensive base on the border. Thai army officers monitoring the fighting said
about 3,000 troops plus an extensive battery of heavy weapons were deployed
against the 1,000 defenders of Kawmoora. 

    Hundreds of shells landed on the Thai side of the border during attacks
on Kawmoora and the Karen's Manerplaw headquarters which Burmese soldiers
occupied last month. The shooting into Thai territory forced hundreds of Thai
villagers to flee their homes. 

    Thai officials had warned Burmese forces not to cross into Thai territory
during their campaign against the rebel forces. 

    Bangkok officials had said any violation of Thai territory could lead to
a re-evaluation of the policy of constructive engagement with Burma's
military government. 

    The Nation newspaper reported on Friday that a senior member of Burma's
ruling military body apologised to Thailand for the burden of the offensive
against the Karen. 

    Lieutenant-General Tin Oo, one of the most senior members of Burma's
ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), made the apology to
Thai army commanders during a private three-day visit to Thailand where he
was a guest of Thai army commander General Wimol Wongwanich. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-02-26 01:54:44 EST
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      By Sutin Wannabovorn 

    CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Feb 27 (Reuter) - Cracks are appearing in the
powerful guerrilla army controlled by Burma's opium warlord Khun Sa and he
could face a revolt, Shan guerrilla and Thai intelligence sources said on
Monday. 

    They said there was growing resentment among Shan nationalist guerrillas
fighting in Khun Sa's army for what they see as his preference for the heroin
trade over the political campaign for Shan autonomy in northeastern Burma. 

    Khun Sa's powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) has long been more of an umbrella
group of Shan guerrilla factions than a cohesive force loyal to the
60-year-old half-Chinese, half-Shan Khun Sa. 

    A Thai intelligence officer said senior members of a Shan nationalist
faction in the MTA met secretly in mid-February to assess the 10 years since
it merged with Khun Sa. 

    They concluded their faction had become a tool of Khun Sa, who projects
himself as a Shan nationalist who taxes the heroin trade as the only source
of revenue for the struggle, the officer told Reuters. 

    Shan guerrillas in the northern Thai town of Chiang Mai confirmed the
meeting and said many mid-ranking Shan officers were becoming disillusioned
with Khun Sa and were gradually distancing themselves from him. 

    ``It is possible that there will be an uprising against Khun Sa when the
time is right,'' one veteran Shan political source told Reuters. 

    ``Thousands of Shan people have been killed in the past 10 years but they
died for nothing. There's no progress in driving the Burmese out of Shan
state while heroin production is growing, doubling from year to year,'' one
Shan source said. 

    A Shan colonel in the MTA said the situation worsened after an ethnic
Chinese faction took total control during fighting with Burmese government
forces last year. 

    ``Eighty percent of guerrillas are Shan but the power is totally in the
hands of ethnic Chinese and the chance of them leading the liberation of the
Shan is zero,'' he said. 

    ``More than 300 MTA guerrillas were killed last year fighting in Mong
Kyawt, but less than 10 Chinese ethnic guerrillas were among them,'' said the
Shan colonel of bitter fighting for a town in southern Shan state. 

    It was the ethnic Chinese who also had total control of Khun Sa's drug
business, the sources said. 

    Problems in Shan state were compounded last year when Thailand sealed its
border with rebel-held areas of Shan state, cutting smuggling routes to Khun
Sa's areas of control. 

    ``More than 30,000 Shan villagers who live in those areas are suffering
but Khun Sa has stored enough rice and food and for his soldiers, the ethnic
Chinese soldiers in particular,'' one source said. 

    ``We understand that the Thais mean to put pressure on Khun Sa, but the
ones who are suffering are the Shan people.'' 

    Thai army officers say they expect Burmese government forces to resume a
large-scale offensive against Khun Sa soon. 

    Khun Sa, who has been indicted by a U.S.court on drug trafficking
charges, is regularly condemned by anti-narcotics agencies as one of the
world's biggest heroin smugglers. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-02-27 13:51:36 EST
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