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Khun Sa is a free man: Burma forgiv (r)



Subject: Khun Sa is a free man: Burma forgives, wants to forget


The Asian Age, 27 April 1996.
 
Khun Sa is a free man: Burma forgives, wants to forget
 
Rangoon, April 26
 
Former opium warlord Khun Sa, who surrendered to the 
Burmese government in January, is a free man and will not be 
tried for his crimes, a senior junta official said on Friday.
 
"We must forgive him since he has surrendered and given no 
problem and handed his arms over to the government," 
lieutenant-general Kyaw Ba, minister for hotels and tourism, 
said in an interview.
 
"Let bygone be bygone, that is the motto of the Burmese 
people," he said. " He has given up all his drug refineries and 
is not creating any problems."
 
Mr Kyaw Ba denied reports Khun Sa was currently living in 
Rangoon and said the former drug lord was living as a free 
man" in northeastern Shan state, where he used to preside 
over what US authorities said was the world's largest opium-
producing operation.
 
Khun Sa would not be tried by Burmese authorities, nor would 
be extradited to the United States, which has demanded that 
he be handed over to face a US court on charges of drug 
trafficking. Washington has placed a two-million-dollar price 
tag on Khun Sa's head.
 
The Burmese minister said Khun Sa would come to live in 
Rangoon once the Burmese Army mopped up the last 
remnants of his Mong Tai Army still holding out in Shan 
state.
 
He put the number of MTA renegades at 2,000 and said 15,00 
fighters from the Shan independence force had already 
surrendered.
 
Mr Kyaw Ba said that despite the holdouts, the Shan 
independence movement was effectively over. "They have 
given up their demands for an independent Shan state," h said.
 
Mr Kyaw Ba also said Burmese forces had overrun all bases 
held by ethnic Karenni rebels in eastern Kayah state near the 
frontier with Thailand.
 
He said current operations were aimed at cleaning up Karenni 
resistance in the border areas, which he said would take from 
three to four months.
 
"If they don't surrender, we are going to fight them. We are 
going smash them," he said.
 
Burmese operations against the Karenni, which have been 
stepped up since Khun Sa's surrendered in January, began 
almost a year ago shortly after cease-fire agreement gave the 
ethnic group have limited autonomy in Kayah state.
 
Kyaw Ba declined to say how many troops were battling the 
Karenni, but the sources from the ethnic group said that 
Rangoon has thrown some 4,000 soldiers into the offensive, 
while the rebels had 1,000 men under arms. (AFP)