Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Blame game continues over Myanmar blasts

On Sunday, Myanmar's Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told journalists, "It is crystal clear that the terrorists ... and the time bombs, originated from training conducted with foreign experts at a place in a neighboring country by a world-famous organization of a certain superpower nation." His circuitous language was widely perceived as fingering Thailand, the CIA and the United States.

As usual there is a pipeline involved and Bush wants to control the flow of oil throughout the world.

Currently, 60% of China's oil imports are transmitted through the Malacca Strait. Should it ever be blocked, China would suffer enormously. China therefore has proposed an alternative route, a Sino-Myanmar pipeline. The junta, given the reaction of the United States, may have been backed by China in order to guarantee the safety of the Sino-Myanmar pipeline.
#msg-3700480

The United States doesn't want to absorb Iraq or take direct possession of its oil. That's not the way of empire today; it's about control over the flow of oil and oil profits, not ownership.

In a world that runs on oil, the nation that controls the flow of oil has great strategic power. U.S. policy-makers want leverage over the economies of competitors -- Western Europe, Japan and China -- that are more dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
#msg-4798276

-Am

Blame game continues over Myanmar blasts
By Richard S Ehrlich

May 19, 2005



BANGKOK - Thailand said it will pursue terrorists described by Myanmar as Central Intelligence Agency-trained, because "maybe someone did something along the border", resulting in a synchronized triple-bombing in Myanmar on May 7 that killed 19 people.

"Thailand does not harbor terrorists, and the Thai government will not allow terrorists to shelter on the Thai soil," said Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who hopes to maintain Bangkok's lucrative business relations with Yangon. "The statement from Myanmar did not specify the Thai government's involvement. But maybe someone did something along the border," the prime minister said on Monday.

"Myanmar will just have to name the suspects and coordinate with us through diplomatic channels, so that we can jointly arrest and interrogate the suspects," Thaksin said.

Thailand is a pliant military and economic ally of the United States, an eager business partner with Myanmar, and publicly gives "humanitarian aid" to unarmed members of ethnic minorities fleeing occasional rebel skirmishes inside the junta-ruled country.

Officials in Yangon have hinted that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained, armed and financed "terrorists" on the Thai side of the lengthy, jungle-clad and porous Thai-Myanmar border, enabling them to detonate three bombs made of a demolition explosive called RDX in Myanmar's capital. No one claimed responsibility and no one was immediately arrested for the bombings, which took place at two supermarkets and a conference center on May 7.

According to an official statement from the Myanmar regime published on Tuesday, "The anti-government elements in exile formed an alliance with remnant national race [minority ethnic] armed groups active in border areas, and set up the [exiled] National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.

"They have been committing various destructive and terrorist acts, such as waging armed revolt against the Tatmadaw [military] government, hijacking, raiding the Myanmar Embassy in Thailand," as well as detonating bombs around the nation and destroying roads, bridges, and gas pipelines, said the accusation in the government-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

On Sunday, Myanmar's Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told journalists, "It is crystal clear that the terrorists ... and the time bombs, originated from training conducted with foreign experts at a place in a neighboring country by a world-famous organization of a certain superpower nation." His circuitous language was widely perceived as fingering Thailand, the CIA and the United States.

Myanmar is mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country and consistently blasts the United States for trying to destabilize it, despite allowing a US$1 billion, 40-mile-long, natural gas pipeline to run from Myanmar into Thailand that includes a massive investment by California-based Unocal corporation, which came under acquisition in April by ChevronTexaco.

Possible bombers with motives and expertise include:
Minority ethnic guerrillas fighting in Myanmar for the past 50 years for autonomy or independence along the border. Over the decades, they have received international medical treatment, illegal military training by foreign mercenaries, and a media platform to blast Myanmar's repressive military government. The junta has named ethnic Shan, Karen and Karenni rebels as taking part in the blasts, but they have denied involvement. Competition among some guerrilla groups for illegal opium, heroin and methamphetamine smuggling routes through Myanmar's Shan state recently erupted in violence in the mountains along the border.

Fugitive Myanmar intelligence agents close to former prime minister Khin Nyunt, who was arrested in October amid charges of corruption and other abuses. Khin Nyunt had headed Myanmar's military intelligence agency, and when he was removed from his post his network was also dismantled, resulting in scores of arrests and a split within Myanmar's vicious and secretive domestic spy agency. At least 38 intelligence officers linked to him were jailed in April for sentences ranging from 20 to 100 years. Hundreds more of his cronies are awaiting tribunals.

Myanmar's government itself, which has come under suspicion by its opponents who claim only the battle-hardened military regime had the capability and resources to stage the sensational triple bombing, as Yangon is riddled with informants and monitored by government phone-tappers.

Internationally, Buddhist-majority Myanmar enjoys support from China, India, Singapore and elsewhere, though it suffers some economic sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States amid demands for an end to military rule and human-rights atrocities.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco, California. He has reported news from Asia since 1978 and is co-author of Hello My Big Big Honey!, a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. He received a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

(Copyright 2005 Richard S Ehrlich.)


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