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SPDC Troops Attacks Rebel Base



Myanmar Troops Attack Rebel Base

By PATRICK McDOWELL
 .c The Associated Press  

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - An estimated 1,000 Myanmar troops firing mortars and
artillery attacked a key Karen insurgent base today, raising tensions along
the frontier with Thailand where thousands of Karen refugees feared cross-
border raids. 

The attack on the headquarters of the Karen National Union's 7th Brigade,
located at Tha Ko Sutha inside Myanmar, just north of the Thai border town of
Mae Sot, met fierce resistance from about 300 Karen fighters, a KNU spokesman
said. 

``We were expecting this since a couple of days ago'' after Myanmar troops
began infiltrating the area, said Ner Dah, a son of the KNU's commander, Gen.
Bo Mya. ``If we can't hold on, we'll have to move to another area.'' 

Myanmar's military regime and allies in a Karen splinter group, the Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army, have launched a late dry-season offensive against the KNU
along the rugged border, joined with a terror campaign against refugees in
Thailand. 

KNU officials claimed that a third person, a teen-age girl, died Saturday from
wounds suffered in Wednesday's raid by 100 DKBA marauders who penetrated into
Thailand and torched the Huay Koloke refugee camp, leaving 9,000 people
without shelter. 

Fears were running high of another terror raid against more than 30,000
refugees at Thailand's largest camp, Maehla. It lies 5 miles inside Thailand,
but was nonetheless attacked more than a year ago. 

Aid workers said that Thai army troops fired blank artillery rounds Thursday
and Friday night in the direction of DKBA positions as a warning against
further raids. 

KNU officials claimed Thai forces repulsed a 100-man incursion Friday
targeting Maehla. The raiders sowed land mines that destroyed a Thai army
truck and wounded two soldiers, the KNU said. Thai army officials were unable
to confirm the reports. 

The Myanmar central government has been fighting the KNU, which desires more
autonomy, for a half-century. The regime has made peace with a score of other
ethnic armies over the past decade, but talks with the KNU have failed. 

But the KNU has suffered a series of defeats in recent years and controls
relatively little territory in Myanmar, also known as Burma. 

The DKBA terror raids against the refugee camps strung along the Thai border,
holding some 100,000 people, mostly Karens, are aimed at scaring people into
returning to Myanmar and denying the KNU rear-base support. 

The Myanmar government maintains the long wars against the ethnic groups have
been necessary to maintain territorial unity. But human-rights groups and
refugees accuse the government soldiers of systematic murder, rape and
destruction of villages. 

The raid on the Huay Koloke camp triggered protests from several Western
countries and human-rights groups. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Myanmar's
harassed pro-democracy movement, has urged Thailand to guarantee the safety of
the refugees. 

Thailand sent a formal protest to Myanmar over the raid, but refugees and
human-rights groups said that Thai soldiers staged in the area did nothing to
defend the camp, a complaint frequently heard after such raids. 

Aid workers have urged Thai authorities to either better defend the camps or
move the refugees to more secure areas.