News about Khun Sa and Shan State

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/* Written  7:26 am  May  2, 1994 by mbeer@xxxxxxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "News about Khun Sa and Shan State" ---------- */
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Copyright 1994 The British Broadcasting Corporation  
                        BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
                              May  2, 1994, Monday
SECTION: Part 3 Asia - Pacific; SOUTHEAST ASIA;  BURMA;  FE/1986/B ; 
LENGTH: 435 words
HEADLINE: [1];
Khun Sa "not frightened" by government's purchase of Mirage aircraft
 BODY:
   'Krungthep Thurakit', Bangkok, in Thai 30 Apr 94 p 15, 16
   Excerpt from report

   A 'Krungthep Thurakit'correspondent has filed a report on his recent visit to
Shan State, the territory under control of Khun Sa, a world-renowned heroin
producer. He said he could hear the sounds of gunfire from the fighting between
the Burmese and ethnic minority forces along the Thai-Burmese border in Mae Hong
Son Province. He also reported that many young men aged between 10 and 15 are
receiving military training. Boys are drafted into the Shan army when they reach
15 years of age.

   From Saengchai Saengchu, the Khan Sa group's assistant coordinator for
civilian affairs, he learned that in early 1994 the Burmese government spent 1bn
dollars to buy 14 Mirage aircraft from China. The Chinese Mirage is a copy of
the Russian version.

   Saengchai said: "We have information that the Burmese government paid 40% of
the cost of the Mirage in cash. The aircraft will be used to suppress
anti-government minority groups. The Burmese government obtained money from
signing away fishing, gem mining and logging concessions. The remaining 60%
could be paid to China by allowing it to build a highway from Mandalay to
Rangoon and a large seaport to give China a new route to the sea."

   Saengchai said his information is that not all the planes will be used
against Khun Sa forces. Most of them will be targeted against the Karen rebel
group, which controls the area opposite Thailand's Mae Sariang district and Tak
Province. Two of the planes have already been shot down by Karen rebels.

   Shan State leader Khun Sa, however, said he was not frightened by Burmese
government's purchase of Chinese planes to suppress rebellious minority groups.
His forces have anti-aircraft guns and SAM-7 rockets to deal with these planes.
His men have also been instructed to build protective shelters.

   Khun Sa said: "We have hired foreign technicians. We are now able to produce
RPGs. Although their quality is not that good, they will be able to shoot down
Burmese planes because the planes are an older model and have low capabilities.
They also have a short flying period because of their small fuel tanks."

   Moreover, Khun Sa said he now has 47,000 soldiers after the training of the
27th batch in early 1994. Another batch of 4,000 have already started the 28th
training cycle. Another 7,000 are expected to be trained in the 29th cycle and
another 8,000 in the 30th cycle. He expects that by the end of this year his
forces will grow by another 20,000 men. This size will be sufficient to fight
the Burmese government soldiers...

opyright 1994 The British Broadcasting Corporation  
                        BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
                              May  2, 1994, Monday
SECTION: Part 3 Asia - Pacific; SOUTHEAST ASIA;  BURMA;  FE/1986/B ; 
LENGTH: 164 words
HEADLINE: [2];
Khun Sa hopes to declare Shan State independence in three years
 BODY:
   'The Nation', Bangkok, in English 28 Apr 94 p A9
   Editorial report

   "Opium warlord" Khun Sa said in an interview at his HQ in Homong that he
hoped to be able to declare the Shan State's independence from  Burma  "in three
years" , and called for European support. His associate, Chao Saengdeun
Saengkham, said he hoped that the group and the Mong Tai army (MTA) would be
able to extend its authority over more of  Burma's  Shan State "within one to
two years" . Then they could declare a government with seven other ethnic groups
- Akha, Lahu, Palaung, Pa-O, Tai, Tashin and Wa.

   Khun Sa was was inspecting about 3,000 newly-trained troops who were leaving
for the front to battle advancing Burmese forces approaching from the western
side of the Salween. A few days earlier the MTA had dispatched other fighters to
join about 2,000 MTA forces already operating on the other side of the river.
The fresh troops would be sent to the Sino-Burmese border to encircle Burmese
forces.

                         Copyright 1994 Southam Inc.  
                                 Calgary Herald

                       May  1, 1994, Sunday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A12
LENGTH: 514 words
HEADLINE: Report says  Burma  using bio-weapons in long-running war with tribal
guerrillas
BYLINE: DAVE TODD, SOUTHAM NEWS

 BODY:
    OTTAWA

    Burma's  military regime is using bacteriological weapons against tribal
hill people fighting one of the world's longest-running guerrilla wars, reports
from that southeast Asia country suggest.

   According to eyewitness accounts, which Canadian government officials said
Friday they treat as a matter of grave concern, mysterious outbreaks of a killer
disease resembling cholera have occurred in territory controlled by  Burma's 
rebel Karen people, along the country's border with Thailand.

   The sudden epidemics, the first of which occurred last August, erupted within
days of military airdrops of balloons containing a foul-smelling dark liquid.

   The accounts are chilling.

   * Mountain villages whose inhabitants have not experienced cholera in
generations have been laid waste in recent months after the airdrops.

   *Government troops have suddenly stopped visiting hostile villages in the
immediate aftermath of the airdrops, once people have fallen ill.

   * Karen guerrillas report that in villages where people have retrieved
devices that have fallen from the skies, those who picked up the mysterious
balloons died first.

   * After the airdrops, Burmese government troops have made a point of advising
"friendly" villagers in affected areas to be sure to keep their food clean and
boil all their water.

   A detailed compilation of known incidents of this kind, assembled by a
Canadian human rights activist, was given to foreign diplomats last week in
Bangkok and to a Canadian Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa on Friday.

   The document's principal author cannot be named, for reasons of personal
safety.

   "Planes came two or three times, flying not too high at night," to a Karen
village called Dta Greh near the Thai border earlier this year, one survivor
recounted.

   Within days, people suffered attacks of diarrhea, incurable because of the
lack of basic medicines, and died. The pattern repeated itself throughout the
area as the aerial drops hit one village after another in zones of conflict
between government and Karen guerrilla forces.

   Contacted Friday in London, Martin Smith of the British civil liberties group
Article 19, one of the world's leading authorities on human rights in  Burma, 
said he was reluctant to give credence to the allegations of biological warfare
against Karen villagers.

   But "something obviously happened in the Karen area and people have died in
these kinds of epidemics," said Smith.

   The three million Karen people, who for 45 years have been seeking an
independent homeland within  Burma,  now called  Myanmar,  are one of the final
obstacles to complete control of  Burma  by the country's brutal military
regime.

   Most other minority ethnic groups at war with the Burmese dictatorship, which
calls itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc), are currently
in the process of arranging peace pacts.

   But the Karen, promised nationhood by their British colonial overlords after
fighting alongside them against Japan from 1941 to 1945, say they have no
intention of giving up their struggle.


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