[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Reuters-Helicopter Escape After Tha



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Reuters-Helicopter Escape After Thai Embassy Siege 

Helicopter Escape After Thai Embassy Siege
09:27 a.m. Oct 02, 1999 Eastern
By Umesh Pandey

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A siege of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok ended
dramatically Saturday when a group of five heavily armed political
dissidents released 89 hostages and escaped by helicopter to the
Thai-Myanmar border.

The attackers, who stormed the mission Friday morning, were flown to
Ratchaburi, about 62 miles west of Bangkok where they were dropped off.

Thai acting Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who had flown with the
dissidents to the border as a guarantee of their safety, said the attackers
then fled into Myanmar from Thailand.

Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart said all 89 hostages, 51 Myanmar
nationals and another 38 people of other nationalities, were released
unharmed by the assailants.

Earlier reports by police and other officials had put the number of hostages
at up to 45.

``During this 25 hours, we are pleased that no one was harmed and now
everyone is free,'' Sanan told a news conference.

He said the Thai government had given the attackers safe passage out of
Bangkok because it did not consider them ''terrorists'' but people seeking
democracy in their own country.

PRO-DEMOCRACY DEMANDS

The attackers, calling themselves the ``Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors,''
had been demanding the release of all Myanmar political prisoners, a
dialogue between the Myanmar military government and the pro-democracy
opposition -- which is led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi -- and a
democratic parliament.

Sukhumbhand did not say exactly where the attackers had disappeared but the
Myanmar area near Ratchaburi is frequented by ethnic minority groups, some
of whom are intensely hostile to Myanmar's military government in Yangon.

Yangon's ruling generals described the dissidents as ``armed terrorists''
and said in an official statement ``the peace loving people of the world
community will not tolerate the criminal and terrorist activities they have
committed.''

The hostages were freed in two large groups Saturday -- some as the
attackers left the embassy compound in two cream-colored minivans and
another group of around 27 at the airfield from which the helicopters took
off, witnesses said.

The hostages appeared exhausted but unharmed and relieved that their ordeal
was over.

One Canadian hostage, who declined to give his name, told Reuters the whole
group had been well treated.

``I am glad I'm free now,'' he said after getting out of a minivan in which
he had been taken to the airfield. ``I was awake all night and only got to
eat at 2 a.m. We were treated fine.''

The release of the hostages ended an intense stand-off around the Myanmar
mission, which had involved many hundreds of police and a large security
operation throughout the Thai capital.

Negotiations were broken off by the attackers at one point during the night
and food was delivered to the embassy to the gunmen, who were armed with
AK-47 assault rifles and grenades.

A deadline, by which the dissidents had vowed to start shooting hostages if
their demands for a getaway helicopter were not met, passed early Saturday
morning without incident.

THAILAND IN EMBARRASSING POSITION

In the end, the attackers, some wearing red bandanas, agreed to leave the
embassy but took with them two busloads of hostages.

They were driven to a military academy in central Bangkok and were met by a
helicopter, which the attackers boarded with Sukhumbhand and another Thai
official.

The dissidents had earlier chopped down the embassy flagpole from which they
had flown their ``fighting peacock'' democracy flag, apparently to make way
for a helicopter.

The attackers fired several times in the embassy, but none of the hostages,
held in the ambassador's office, were harmed.

The attack on the embassy put the Thai government in an embarrassing
position.

Officials said Thailand was not in a position to negotiate many of the
demands of the dissidents that involved a change of the military government
in Myanmar or its political system.

A statement from the attackers said the group was not connected with Myanmar
dissident student organizations, the country's opposition or international
support groups: ``This action is our own movement and our own ideas,'' it
said.

Many Myanmar students fled to Thailand after the military killed thousands
when it crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. But the storming of the
embassy marks a radical departure from years of peaceful protests by
opponents of Myanmar's military rule.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said Washington strongly condemned
``this terrorist attack,'' regardless of the motives and demands of the
perpetrators.