SCMP-Hell camp bred hostage plot

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South China Morning Post
Wednesday, October 6, 1999
MEKONG REGION

Hell camp bred hostage plot
BURMA by WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok

seizure of Burma's Bangkok embassy was a plot hatched by frustrated and
bloodyminded young exiles in the "Honey Garden" district two hours' drive
from the Thai capital.
The gang leader was Ye Thi Ha, also known as San Naing, who 10 years ago
hijacked a domestic Burmese flight to Thailand.

After serving six years in prison he went in 1993 to the Ratchaburi holding
camp for student exiles.

Established in 1992, this camp had already attracted the attention of
organisations like Amnesty International and the US Committee for Refugees.

It was an unhappy camp full of unhappy people, but it offered a haven of
sorts.

It also allowed Ye Thi Ha to make, or cement, friendships with the four
other exiles who would help him run the traditional Fighting Peacock flag of
Burmese opposition up his country's flagpole in the Thai capital six years
later.

One of the these young men was Johnny, or Kyaw Oo, who became something of a
celebrity over the weekend after giving polite Thai-language interviews to a
local radio station.

But in the camp his reputation was rather different. "He was very difficult.
Always getting into fights. Quite aggressive," said someone who knew him.

One hostage, who cannot be identified, said four of the hostage-takers were
quite calm during the siege - or at least until the tense final two hours.

But one member of the gang was quite jumpy and, as far as this hostage could
see, was responsible for the gunfire heard on Friday and Saturday. "That'll
be Johnny. That's him alright," said his former colleague.

Johnny, and others like him, may have reason to be nervous.

The great majority of residents in the Ratchaburi camp were students - often
a euphemism for anyone between 15 and 30 - who had fled murderous repression
at home in 1988.

The mostly urban, often middle-class youths had had a torrid time stumbling
through malarial jungles only to find that dubious sanctuary lay either with
suspicious ethnic rebels or unwelcoming Thailand.

In the early days the main rebel group - the Karen National Union -
sometimes used the raw and inexperienced youths as cannon fodder, claim some
exiles.

The Thais initially provided equally uncertain shelter: a business-oriented
government kicked many of the students back across the border to appease
Rangoon.

If it was a desperate time it was also a time of hope. Burma was a pariah
nation and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been elevated to the
status of international heroine.

When Ye Thi Ha hijacked a Burmese plane, he probably assumed he was jumping
in the same direction as history.

But 11 long years have passed since the students struggled into exile,
without a sign the regime is willing to countenance even the mildest easing
of military control.

Insiders say that ferment in the dwindling community of a few hundred
Thai-based activists appeared to boil over a year ago after scores of them
demonstrated from the 3rd to the 24th of August 1998 to commemorate 8-8-88 -
a symbolic day of mass protest in Burma - outside the city-centre embassy.

Mysterious motorcyclists threw bottles at the demonstrators during the
night. Later, 32 of them were dragged off by the Thai police to Bang Kheng
special detention centre, typically for spells of six months. Two of the
protesters remain in detention.

"Many people said another tactic was needed. Protesting like that didn't
work," said a source.

This year's numerically significant day of protest on 9-9-99 proved a damp
squib in the face of the junta's sharp repression.

That was probably the final turning point. Ye Thi Ha's little band of
followers started moving into action.

The attack team eventually included Myint Thein, alias Bada, the former
secretary for news and information in Ratchaburi camp's Burmese Students
Association.

The others were Min Nyo or Ni Ni and someone called Jimmy.

Where are they now? About three days' walk from Ratchaburi camp near jungle
where in 1992 five members of a nine-man police commando unit went missing
for a month. When the unit finally emerged it was minus four members who had
been killed by drug traffickers.

Thailand's deputy foreign minister, Sukhumbhand Paribatra, acted as a proxy
hostage during the helicopter ride to the border on Saturday. In 1992, Mr
Sukhumbhand, in academic guise, argued that in their hour of need the
Burmese people should be supported by Thailand.

"They need us, they need our moral support," he said.

Many members of the exile community are praying this week that, even after
last weekend's shenanigans, that generous thought will still hold true.

However, Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart said yesterday regulations
confining exiled students to the Ratchaburi camp would from now on be
strictly enforced. "Students will not be allowed to roam free any more," he
said.