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Defection of senior officer rocks KNU
Beginning of the end of movement seen

Bangkok Post
April 28, 1998

Supamart Kasem 
Tak

The defection of a senior Karen National Union officer to the Burmese junta
with over 200 followers indicates the KNU is now at its lowest ebb in over
50 years, sources said.

KNU members, Thai authorities, and those involved in Thai-Burmese border
problems wonder if it is the beginning of the end of the KNU, which was
founded in 1947.

Padoe Aung San defected early this month. He was a close aide of KNU
president Gen Bo Mya, a central committee member and the forestry minister
responsible for raising KNU funds from border logging.

He was also responsible for obtaining weapons. He is thought to have
handled hundreds of million of baht a year when the KNU was at its
strongest over 10 years ago.

"He had a house in Mae Sot and Chiang Mai and shares in many Thai
businesses ... He had close links with former Thai military personnel,
influential people and businessmen along the Thai border," a logging source
said.

Thai border security officials believe Padoe Aung San defected because he
was worried about his safety. He is said to have feared death threats made
by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) after fleeing from Htee Ter
Khi to Ban Mae Woei, in Tak province, in 1995 after the KNU headquarters in
Manerplaw and other camps opposite Mae Hong Son's Sop Moei district were
overrun. 

He had also been accused of corruption and although he had tried to clear
his name other KNU members asked Gen Bo Mya to dismiss him.

Padoe Aung San was also contacted by the DKBA after it was given the
go-ahead by Rangoon to press ahead with logging interests.

Sources said he was believed to have been involved in illegal logging in
Tha Song Yang national forest reserve in 1997 and in the Salween forests.

He defected to the State Peace and Development Council on April 6 and was
promptly roundly condemned by the KNU.

An article on the Internet, released in the name of anti-Rangoon Karens,
accused him of leaving the KNU with 28 million baht and compared him to a
dog turning on its master.

A KNU source said Padoe Aung San was born in 1937 in Karen state, the third
child of Buddhist parents. He received an education under the Seventh Day
Adventists and became a primary school teacher in 1959. 

While a teacher he worked undercover with the KNU. Facing arrest in 1967,
he fled to join the KNU in the jungle. His first post was as a
superintendent in the forestry ministry. In 1980 he became forestry minister.

Padoe Aung San was close to Gen Bo Mya, being a school friend of the Karen
leader's wife.

He has three daughters and two sons.

While with the KNU he supervised a high school. A number of his students
and family members followed him when he defected.

On April 17 he received a hero's welcome in a ceremony chaired by SPDC
first secretary Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt in front of a crowd at Pa-an, the capital
of Karen state.

Also present were 213 followers who defected with 51 rifles, one mortar,
and more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

At a subsequent press conference in Rangoon, Padoe Aung San said Karen
refugee camps in Thailand were sanctuaries for KNU soldiers who frequently
crossed the border to attack Burmese soldiers. He said many refugees were
killed for failing to obey the KNU.

Most Karen refugees wanted to return to Burma but did not dare to do so for
fear of being killed. At the same time, non-governmental organisation
workers tried to persuade them to remain on Thai soil so they could get
donations. Most of the cash donated to the refugees went to the NGOs and
some Thai authorities, he charged.

Padoe Aung San accused Gen Bo Mya of being dictatorial. He had sacked Mahn
Ba Zan, the KNU chairman in 1976, without calling a meeting of the
executive committee. He had also once ordered the killing of a student who
accidentally shot a soldier, without an investigation. 

Sources said this was not the first sign of rifts within the KNU. Many
Young Turks had called for Gen Bo Mya to step down.

Deputy Defence Minister Gen Wattanachai Wuthisiri shrugged off Padoe Aung
San's accusation that Thailand had assisted the KNU.

Last Modified: Tue, Apr 28, 1998

-----------------------
Student head jailed for 'terrorism'

Bangkok Post
April 28, 1998
AFP

A Burma student leader has been jailed for 15 years for a range of crimes
including involvement in an alleged terrorist plot, Burma's military junta
said yesterday.

A junta spokesman said the sentence reflected the severity of the student's
crime and denied reports he has been jailed because he was writing a
history of the student movement in the country.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) said last month it
had foiled a terrorist plot led by a group of 12 students in which
government leaders were said to be targets for assassination.

The spokesman said Aung Tun, 30, was jailed for breached of the Emergency
Provision Act and the Printers and Publishers Registration Act.

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) said the civil engineering
student at the Yangon (Rangoon) Institute of Technology was actively
involved in the 1988 student uprising and wrote the history at the request
of other students.

It said Aung Tun was first arrested in 1990 for his political activities
and spent two years in solitary confinement.

The junta official denied the student group's claims as fabrication.
----------------

Europe extends Burma sanctions

Bangkok Post
April 28, 1998

Luxembourg, The European Union agreed yesterday to extend sanctions on
military-ruled Burma for a further six months.

The sanctions, which include a ban on issuing visas to members of the
junta, were imposed in 1996 in a bid to pressure the regime to move toward
democracy and open a dialogue with outlawed opposition.

The European Union also has a freeze on contacts at ministerial or
senior-official level and an embargo on the sale of military equipment to
Burma. -- AFP

----------------------

SPORTS - ARCHERY / AMAZING THAILAND C'SHIPS 
Bangkok Post
April 28, 1998

Chinese Taipei, Burma split individual golds Thais fail to make any impression
Suchin Chirakul 

Chinese Taipei's Chang Huan Ching and Khin Than Nwe of Burma yesterday won
the individual men's and women's gold medals in the Amazing Thailand
Archery Championships at the Hua Mark Archery Range, Sports Authority of
Thailand, yesterday.

In the elimination round, Khin knocked out Le Kim Ming of Vietnam by 155
points to 124 and then in the quarter-final she beat team-mate Myat Thuzar
Myint 94-80.

Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Kimoanh fell to the Burmese archer in the semi-final,
108-84, while in the final Knin Than Nwe proved too strong for Kuo Hsiang
Yu of Chinese Taipei, winning 103-97. Chang Hsiao Feng of Chinese Taipei
picked up the bronze medal.

Chang defeated Bhutan's Rinzi Chhophel 97-93 to clinch the men's gold. The
bronze went to Vietnam's Do Duc Hanh.

RESULTS Individual men's: 1. Chang Huan Ching (Chinese Taipei); 2. Rinzi
Chhophel (Bhu); 3. Do Duc Hanh (Vietnam).

Individual women's: 1. Khin Than Nwe (Burma); 2. Kuo Hsiang Yu (Chinese
Taipei); 3. Chang Hsiao Feng (Chinese Taipei).

Last Modified: Tue, Apr 28, 1998
---------------------

Burma asked to open border

The Nation
April 28, 1998

Thailand has urged Burma to reopen the border checkpoint in Mae Sot
following its closure on April 14, a senior Foreign Ministry official said
yesterday.

Deputy spokesman Kitti Wasinondh said the ministry summoned Burmese
Ambassador U Hla Maung last Friday and presented him with an aide-memoire
calling for the opening "as soon as possible".

Virasakdi Futrakul, director general of the Department of East Asian
Affairs who met U Hla Maung, related Thailand's concern over the closure of
the border pass at the Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge on the Moei River
(Mae Sot-Myawady Border Pass) which was done without notifying Thai
authorities in advance.

-----------------

Foreign Worker still needed

The Nation
April 28, 1998

The Labour Ministry will today request the Cabinet to allow illegal workers
from Burma, Laos and Cambodia to temporarily work in border and fishing
provinces, a source said yesterday.

The proposal sought to empower the Labour Ministry to allow illegal workers
from three nations, who are waiting to be repatriated, to work in specific
jobs to be later determined by the ministry, the source said.

-----------------
Student historian gets 15 years

The Nation
April 28, 1998

Burma military government recently sentenced  a student leader to 15 years
in prison for writing a history of the student movement, an organisation of
exiled students said yesterday.

Aung Tun was arrested earlier this year and charged with violating the 1962
Printing and Publishing Act and Section 5j of the 1950 Emergency Provision
Act, said a press release from All Burma Students Democratic Front. --
Associate Press.

-------------------

Burma caught in a state of limbo

Generals are putting on brave front, but the country is heading nowhere as
the political impasse continues, report Patrick McDowell.

The Nation
April 28, 1998

In one breath the leaders of Burma's military government say US sanctions
and the Asian economic crisis have had no effect on their country; in the
next they urged Washington to reverse a ban on new investment and denounce
allegations of human rights abuses in Burma as "garbage".

"We survived 30 years without the outside world; we can survive another
50," said Brig-Gen David Abel, a Cabinet minister, "but we will never go
back, never."

It's harder to say exactly where Burma is going a year after US President
Bill Clinton, with the support of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,
banned new investment by American companies. Limbo perhaps comes closest.
After a quarter-century of socialist isolation dragged down the country's
economy the current generation of ruling generals opened up Burma to
foreign investment in the early 1990s. Economic gains have been impressive
over the past few years, with annual growth claimed at six per cent, but
the economy is showing serious signs of trouble.

Consumer prices jumped 25 per cent in 1997. Burma's currency sells for far
less on the black market than the official exchange rate. Rice exports have
been frozen since floods last year. Imports of goods from whiskey to
air-conditioners have been severely curtailed to husband reserves of
foreign currencies.

The woes have more to do with Asia's economic crisis that US sanctions, but
Asian economies are unlikely to put much money into Burma again for several
years. Southeast Asian neighbour account for half of Burma's trade and
investment. Asian-owned factories, many producing garment for export, are
spouting in industrial parks that were paddies a years ago, but other
companies are not coming, those with important American clients who do not
want to risk consumer boycotts and other troubles for dealing with Burma's
military rulers.

Current investment is largely limited to developing natural gas, and energy
companies from other countries have stepped in to handle new projects.
Andreas Hoffmann, an executive for German's Deutdche Bank, said foreign
companies were "cautiously optimistic" a political breakthrough can be
reached between the generals and democratic opposition, which would improve
the business climate. Other said they were tired of waiting.

A gulf of contempt separates the Oxford-educated Suu Kyi and the military,
which was founded by her father, independence hero Aung San. The army
seized power 36 years ago and has never surrendered it. A recent incident
illustrated the obstacles to compromise. Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, one of the
leaders of the ruling State Peace and Development Council, disowned his son
in February, reportedly for eloping with a Singaporean.

Why? The new constitution being drafted by an assembly of representatives
handpicked by the military bans from public office anyone married to a
foreigner or even whose child has a foreign spouse. Suu Kyi is married to a
Briton.

If the military is unwilling to make exceptions for Khin Nyunt, it is
highly unlikely to do so far for a woman they view as arrogant and whose
popularity abroad feeds insular fears that she is a foreign agent. Suu Kyi
has never said she want to hold office, but the military is certain she
wants to become prime minister.

Hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail. The state controls the
press. Universities remain closed since unrest in 1996. No civilians hold
top government posts. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
overwhelmingly won elections in 1990, but the military never allowed
Parliament to convene.

She has spent most of the past nine years under house arrest or close
confinement.

Unwilling to meet her calls for dialogue, the generals have tried to skirt
her and talk with other leaders of the party.

After initial contacts, the party refused to talk further without Suu Kyi,
but political insiders, speaking on condition anonymity, said Suu Kyi faced
divisions within party. Some members feels sharing power with the military
would better than nothing, while other want to hold out for full democracy,
the sources said.

"There's no objection in principle to talking, but we won't say who, who,
who," Abel said. - Associated Press.
---------------------------

Farmers know best

The Nation
April 28, 1998

Burma is an agricultural country. Better days for farmers mean better days
for the people of Burma. And to improve the quality of life of the farmers,
they need modern equipment and appropriate agricultural techniques.

But the Burmese military junta will not support them. As a brutal
dictatorship they only know how to solve the problems by force. The farmers
are the ones who know more than anybody, especially the military, when it
comes to agricultural - like when and what to plant on their land.
Unfortunately, the Burmese junta is the one who decide on such matters. For
the living standard of farmers to improve, they need to increase their
income from their agricultural outputs. The military should not dictate the
life of the farmers. Let the farmers do what they know best.

Thet Oo
Federation of Trade Union - Burma (FTUB)
Washington, DC