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New York Times's coverage on studen
- Subject: New York Times's coverage on studen
- From: WINCOURAGE@xxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 00:28:00
Subject: New York Times's coverage on students' seizure of
By REUTERS
ANGKOK, Thailand -- Gunmen took at least 30 hostages at the Myanmar Embassy
on Friday and threatened to start killing them, the police said.
The intruders, whose hostages include Myanmar diplomats and several other
foreigners, threatened to start shooting one hostage every half-hour,
starting Saturday morning, if their demand for a helicopter to take them to
the Thai-Myanmar border was not met.
The BBC quoted a man who said he was the leader of the group as saying the
killing would start with Burmese hostages first.
But the deadline passed without incident.
A Thai official said 13 Myanmar citizens, including the first and second
secretaries of the embassy, and a Japanese were being held. The Thai police
said 15 or 16 Thais were also in the compound.
Antoine Marcotte, 31, who identified himself as a Canadian from Montreal,
said on Friday afternoon by telephone from the embassy that the other foreign
hostages included three Frenchmen, three Canadians, a German, an American, an
Australian and several Malaysians and Singaporeans.
Negotiations, which ended late Friday after the gunmen cut the embassy's
telephone lines, resumed this morning, with Thai negotiators and the
attackers yelling over the embassy's high walls.
A Bangkok police official, Lieut. Gen. Wannarat Kajarak, said a helicopter
was on its way to the embassy. Several hostages were released or escaped.
The hostage takers had earlier said they were prepared to cut down trees and
a flagpole in the small embassy grounds, in downtown Bangkok, to enable a
helicopter to land and take them to the border with some hostages.
The police said that 12 attackers stormed the embassy on Friday morning and
that they were armed with grenades and rifles.
They then issued a fax in which they called themselves the Vigorous Burmese
Student Warriors and demanded that the military Government of Myanmar free
political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and convene a
democratic parliament.
The group said after seizing the embassy that it wanted to talk to the Thai
authorities and that no one had been killed. But when the police arranged to
have a Myanmar dissident negotiate through a loudspeaker, the response from
the embassy was three shots.
A spokesman for the State Department, James P. Rubin, said the United States
strongly condemned "this terrorist attack," regardless of the motives and
demands of the gunmen.
About 300 heavily armed police officers, including members of an
antiterrorist squad, surrounded the embassy, and nearby roads were cordoned
off. Sharpshooters were atop a tall building next to the embassy, but were
ordered to hold their fire to allow for talks.
The BBC quoted the man who identified himself as the leader as having said he
had ordered his men to shoot if they saw any threatening movement nearby. The
deputy police chief of Thailand said he was not aware of the gunmen's
threatening to kill hostages.
"I am not aware of what the men inside said to the media," the deputy chief,
Lieut. Gen. Wannarat Kocharak, said. "But at this moment, they only demand a
helicopter to fly them to the border, and negotiators have not accepted that
demand yet."
A Thai police officer who was freed by the attackers told reporters the
attackers had said they had eight AK-47 rifles and 20 grenades.
The statement from the group claiming responsibility said it was not
connected with other Myanmar dissident student organizations, the country's
opposition or international support groups.
"This action is our own movement and our own ideas," the statement said.
Many student dissidents fled to Thailand after the military killed thousands
in 1988 in crushing an uprising for democracy.