Myanmar: Now it's three of a kind By Richard Erlich
October 21, 2004
BANGKOK - Anti-American hardliners in Myanmar's military regime have arrested Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, also head of the country's military intelligence and architect of a tentative "roadmap to democracy", and placed him under house arrest for alleged corruption, according to conflicting reports from the secretive country.
The arrest occurred on Monday, but news only filtered out to the international community on Tuesday, when it was confirmed by Thailand. "Khin Nyunt was removed from his position," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters.
Myanmar's government-controlled television and radio made no mention of any arrest and instead announced on Tuesday that Khin Nyunt had retired for health reasons and been replaced by army General Soe Win in an appointment signed by junta strongman Senior General Than Shwe, according to Reuters.
"The person who signed the order [to remove the prime minister] said Khin Nyunt had been involved in corruption and [was] not suitable to stay in his position," Thai government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair told reporters. "It is still unclear who issued the order," he added.
Myanmar soldiers took up positions outside Khin Nyunt's house in the capital, Yangon, where he has been confined to house arrest, and increased their presence in front of military intelligence headquarters, witnesses told the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC).
There were no immediate reports of unrest in Myanmar, mainland Southeast Asia's biggest country, and it is expected to continue its friendly commercial and diplomatic links with China, Thailand, India and other countries willing to circumvent US-led international sanctions.
Myanmar's military - hardened by more than 50 years of battle with minority ethnic insurgencies along its borders - was also expected to continue supporting hardline general Than Shwe and his right-hand man, General Maung Aye.
Myanmar currently is run by a military junta that had included Khin Nyunt among the top three in power. He had just marked a year on the job after being appointed prime minister in August 2003, crowning 20 years as head of the Defense Services Intelligence Directorate.
Some Myanmar watchers viewed Khin Nyunt as a moderate for plans he revealed soon after becoming prime minister - the most important of which was a seven-step roadmap toward democratic reform. The reconvening of the National Convention to draft a new constitution, first initiated in 1993 but adjourned in 1996, was described, at the time, as the preliminary step of this exercise.
Khin Nyunt's removal has dashed faint hopes for reform and an end to military rule as it will allow Than Shwe and other hardline generals to consolidate power. With Soe Win now installed as prime minister, the top three positions in the junta are effectively in the hands of the hardliners. Their domination heralds a setback for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's most famous political prisoner, who has suffered more than seven years under house arrest in Yangon.
Suu Kyi had hoped to bring democracy to troubled, impoverished Myanmar, despite the junta blocking her National League for Democracy party from power after it won a landslide election victory in 1990.
The junta frequently criticizes Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi for being a puppet of the United States, Britain and other foreign powers interested in exploiting Myanmar's vast untapped natural resources. Khin Nyunt, who was reported to favor talks with Suu Kyi, met her at least twice and said, "I think of her as a younger sister."
On Monday, the regime's New Light of Myanmar newspaper prominently portrayed Khin Nyunt opening an HIV/AIDS exhibition in Mandalay and visiting Buddhist shrines with other officials. The paper, which frequently expresses the junta's anti-US stance, also warned if John Kerry was elected president in next month's election, "he would reduce the important role of democracy in the whole world".
Spreading its criticism to include Washington's current administration, a commentary last Saturday warned, "Economic sanctions, which cause deterioration of the [Myanmar] economy, will not bring democracy." The paper also blasted America's military for "occupying Iraq illegally".
It blamed the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, along with the BBC, for broadcasting the views of expatriate Myanmar dissidents, and favorably describing them as democracy activists. Myanmar's military has ruled through various juntas after a bloodless coup in 1962 brought the army's commander, Ne Win, to power. Since that time, the government has shown scant respect for political and civil liberties. Voices of dissent have always been met with brutal force in the form of batons and bullets.
After coming to power, Ne Win mired Myanmar in poverty and human-rights abuses, until younger generals shoved him aside in 1988 and locked him under house arrest in March 2002. Ne Win's daughter, Sandar Win, along with her husband and their three adult sons, were simultaneously arrested by the junta, charged with attempting a coup, and later convicted and sentenced to death. Ne Win died in December 2002 at the age of 91.
Earlier this year, Myanmar ordered about 1,000 delegates to start drafting a new constitution under the National Convention. The move was criticized by Suu Kyi and others as a charade to draw up a document that would give the military immunity for alleged crimes committed during its reign.
Khin Nyunt, who led a high-profile delegation to China in July along with other junta members and met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, enjoyed vast internal power through his manipulation of Myanmar's secret police.
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 nonfiction book of investigative journalism. He received a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
In the Pacific Theatre 'on the campaign against terrorism' Australia and the US agreed that South East Asia was a key front. #msg-3542419
Much of the South East Asian front will be centered around the Malacca Strait.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during a visit to Singapore that he hoped to have US troops fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia "pretty soon". His comments fuelled speculation that the United States wants to deploy US forces in the Strait of Malacca, the narrow and busy shipping lane straddled by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that is seen as a likely terrorist target.
More than one million tonnes of oil a year -- well over 80 percent of China's imports -- are shipped through the narrow strait. #msg-3404130 #msg-4474975
China thus is looking to boost military ties with Indonesia and a recent junta believed to be backed by China has given Myanmar over to the dragon. #msg-4328677
To the south of Myanmar Thailand is ready to explode.
Thailand is bracing for worse violence. “They (separatists) want to stir our anger, prompt us to use brute force and spread the news. Then their sympathisers overseas will throw in their support,” said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Bangkok has also turned down CIA anti-terror training. "We don't want any country, ally or not, to interfere with our internal affairs," said Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister in charge of internal security Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.
It was the first time a Thai government minister admitted that the CIA has offered Thailand anti-terrorism training.
-Am
November 6, 2004
BANGKOK: Muslim separatists are intensifying violence in southern Thailand in hopes of a brutal government response that would boost foreign support for their aims, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Friday.
The separatists, who have been targetting Buddhists in the largely Muslim region since 85 Muslim protesters died last week, were trying to intimidate non-Muslims into leaving the area and attract recruits, he told reporters.
“They want to stir our anger, prompt us to use brute force and spread the news. Then their sympathisers overseas will throw in their support,” he said.
“We know what they’ve been doing and what they’ve planned to do,” he said, but stopped short of saying who was behind violence in the largely Malay-speaking region which erupted in January with an army camp raid in which around 300 assault rifles were stolen.
At least 15 people, most of them Buddhists, have been killed by militants since last week’s deaths of 85 protesters, 78 of whom suffocated or were crushed after being crammed into army trucks for a long journey into detention. One of the victims was a Buddhist monk who was shot and severely wounded after a religious ceremony in nearby Songkhla on Thursday and died later in hospital, police said.
Another was a Muslim Marine guarding a Buddhist temple who was shot and killed by suspected militants. Armed with M-16 assault rifles, the gunmen attacked the temple compound in a Buddhist village in Narathiwat province’s Ruesoh district around midnight on Thursday and killed the 22-year-old Muslim private in a short firefight, police said.
More than 450 people - mostly security men and officials - have been killed since the raid on the army camp in the remote south bordering Malaysia in which four soldiers were killed. The mainly Buddhist government in Bangkok is showing few signs of getting any closer to coming up with policies or answers to resolve the unrest.
Thaksin said the unrest may prevent him from joining re-elected US President George W Bush and other Asia-Pacific leaders at a summit in Chile this month.
“If the situation is still unabated, I won’t go,” Thaksin said when asked whether he would attend the November 20-21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Santiago.
“I am obliged to take care of the situation,” said Thaksin, host of the 23-member APEC summit in Bangkok last year and who sees himself as the emerging leader of Southeast Asia. He was likely to send Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh to Santiago instead, a government official told Reuters. reuters
BANGKOK (dpa) - Thailand has turned down an offer by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for anti-terrorism training, a senior minister said on Tuesday. "We don't want any country, ally or not, to interfere with our internal affairs," said Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister in charge of internal security Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.
It was the first time a Thai government minister admitted that the CIA has offered Thailand anti-terrorism training.
"We have known each other for a long time, and they may have been thinking to help us, but we told them no thanks," Chavalit said. He added that Thailand already has its own anti-terrorism training.
Thailand drew international criticism last week, especially from Muslim countries, for its crackdown on a mob of Muslim protesters on October 25 in Tak Bai of the southern province of Narathiwat, which left 85 people dead. Seventy-eight of the demonstrators died in detention while being trucked from Tak Bai to an army base in Pattani.
The Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), a decades-old separatist movement, has threatened to attack targets in Bangkok, Thailand's capital, in the wake of the Tak Bai incident.
Altogether, more than 460 people have died in Thailand's three southernmost provinces - Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala - since January this year.
Why is there conflict in Thailand? 04 Nov 2004 16:10:00 GMT
Source: AlertNet By Katherine Arie
A Thai Buddhist monk is escorted by two soldiers in southern Yala province. Stringer photo LONDON (AlertNet) - In the past 10 months, Muslim separatists in Thailand's three southernmost provinces have stepped up attacks on police, government buildings and other symbols of the mainly Buddhist Thai state.
The Thai government has responded with force, declaring martial law in the region.
Altogether some 450 people have been killed since January 2004.
The separatist movement is decades old, but violence has gotten worse this year.
Economic and social grievances have rekindled frustration in the south, which is poorer than the rest of the country, and the separatists claim the central government discriminates against Muslims.
Muslims are a minority in Thailand, and make up just 10 percent of the country's overall population of 63 million.
They live mainly in the southern provinces, which were annexed by the Thai government in 1902.
Many of Thailand’s Muslims speak Malay and have more in common with the citizens of neighbouring Malaysia than with Buddhist Thais.
The government initially blamed bandits and mafia-style crime bosses for the violence but was forced to acknowledge that separatists were responsible.
There is also concern that international extremists are involved.
ANGER AND REPRISALS
Since April, suicide raids, arson attacks, and shootings of Thai officials, traffic policemen and Buddhist monks have become almost a daily occurrence.
In October, tensions increased after 79 southern protestors -- all Muslim -- died in army custody.
The protestors, who had been arrested after a riot outside a police station, were crowded into trucks, where they died of suffocation on their way to detention at an army camp.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra admitted that the army was at fault, but Muslim leaders and analysts fear that no matter what the government says the protesters' deaths will encourage more Muslims to join the insurgency.
There is even evidence that the separatists will take their revenge in Bangkok.
The United Nations has put its Thailand staff on alert following threats by separatists to stage attacks in the capital.
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