Army power struggle in Myanmar as EU team to visit
Army power struggle in Myanmar as EU team to visit
Dominic Whiting, Reuters, Bangkok
A European Union (EU) mission arrives in Myanmar on Wednesday to
revive talks between the military junta and pro-democracy
opposition, but a growing power struggle among senior generals
may foil their efforts.
Myanmar's rulers said at the weekend they had thwarted an
attempted coup, arresting four relatives of 92-year-old former
dictator Ne Win and firing three high-ranking officials. Analysts
say a purge may be under way with more arrests likely.
Foreign diplomats in Yangon and Myanmar analysts in exile say
the arrests may be linked to a power struggle between army head
Gen. Maung Aye and intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt,
officially number two and three in Myanmar's ruling junta.
Khin Nyunt is seen as a supporter of efforts to break the
political deadlock through talks with pro-democracy opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Maung Aye is said to be against
concessions to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
The talks, which began in secret in late 2000, have yet to
yield any accord. The military has been gradually releasing
political prisoners, but the EU team wants faster progress.
"After one and a half years, visible results need to be shown
if the military wants to avoid the impression it's not just
buying time," an EU official in Bangkok told Reuters.
Nobel prize-winning laureate Suu Kyi has been confined to her
Yangon house since September 2000.
The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has ruled the
impoverished Southeast Asian country of 52 million people under
one guise or another since rejecting the results of Suu Kyi's
1990 landslide election victory.
A year ago, an EU team left the country hailing the nascent
talks between the ruling generals and the NLD as the "most
interesting development" for more than a decade.
Now optimism is evaporating, and confusion over the alleged
coup plot has done nothing to help.
The two-day EU visit aims to assess the human rights and
political situation in Myanmar a month before the group's "common
position" is reviewed. The EU currently maintains a visa ban on
the junta's leaders, as well as trade and aid sanctions.
Top of the EU's demands is the immediate release of Suu Kyi,
who had insisted the junta firstly free the estimated 1,500
political prisoners before diplomats persuaded her she could
further her cause better by being freed first.
He said the EU team would consult Yangon-based diplomats about
the coup allegations. The EU diplomat said talk of internal power
struggles was credible.
Military rulers said they had arrested a son-in-law and three
grandsons of Ne Win for plotting a coup after they were muscled
out of lucrative business deals because of the waning influence
of their family elder.
Although not announced officially, diplomats said the chief of
police, the head of the air force and a senior army general had
also been sacked because of links to Ne Win's relatives.
Ne Win seized power in 1962, relinquishing it only in 1988.
Many believe he continued to wield behind-the-scenes influence
after officially stepping down. His family was seen as close to
Khin Nyunt.
Myanmar officials made a rare comment at the weekend on
allegations of a split among senior generals, saying there was no
struggle between Maung Aye and Khin Nyunt.