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Stupid and careless reporter! SCMP



Subject: Stupid and careless reporter!  SCMP-Hell camp bred hostage plot

I dont think this was a very good idea to have identified these
individuals as they did not wish to be identified, and it is only
hoped that the names here in this story are not real names. otherwise
its very stupid and careless to have done it. ds

William Barnes hitherto has been one of the finer reporters on the
scene but this is a mistake. and there was no need for it.
TIN KYI wrote:
> 
> 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.