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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)