Yangoon to pursue operations against drug lord Khun Sa
Yangoon to pursue operations against drug lord Khun Sa
YANGON (AFP): Myanmarese military officials say they will
pursue operations against reputed Shan state drug warlord Khun Sa
and settle for nothing less than his unconditional surrender.
The officials refused to give any details of talks with Khun
Sa, although foreign diplomats said they believed negotiations
had moved beyond the preliminary stage and that an accord could
be expected.
Approached at an independence day banquet Thursday night, the
high-ranking officers poured scorn on a U.S. announcement of a
US$2 million reward for information leading to Khun Sa's capture
and conviction.
"The Americans never lifted a finger to help us with Khun Sa.
They refused to give us weapons to fight against him. We had to
use our own resources against him and lost many lives in the
process. Now they want to move in," one official said.
In Washington Thursday, the U.S. State Department called on
Yangon to hand over Khun Sa for trial on drug trafficking
charges. "We are determined to get him sooner or later,"
spokesman Nicholas Burns said.
The Myanmarese officers confirmed that government troops had
entered Khun Sa's base at Ho Mong in the Shan state across the
border from Thailand, meeting little resistance, and they
stressed that policy on Khun Sa was unchanged.
"We have stated that as far as Khun Sa was concerned it must
be nothing else but unconditional surrender... and whatever this
entails under the Geneva convention," the official told AFP.
"Operations regarding Khun Sa are still ongoing and will end
only when our mission is accomplished," he added. He declined to
elaborate and said a news release would be issued "at the
appropriate time."
Yangon-based diplomats, speaking by telephone to Bangkok,
believed the main detail to be settled involved Khun Sa's
personal future.
The ruling junta, officially known as the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC), was sincere in insisting on Khun
Sa's surrender, they held, but this did not mean the SLORC
realistically expected him to accept detention.
The junta might stage a show trial, followed by an amnesty of
Khun Sa, or he might simply drop out of sight in an inaccessible
region along the border with Thailand, some diplomats suggested.
In any case, the end to fighting with Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army
(MTA) would be a relief to the military as well as a political
boon signifying that the last ethnic insurgent group had been
brought into the official fold, the diplomats said.
The Bangkok Post reported yesterday that the SLORC deputy
intelligence chief, Col. Kyaw Win, was expected in Ho Mong on
Monday for negotiations with Khun Sa.
Some 15,000 MTA troops remained in the area but put up little
resistance when government forces advanced on their bases in
recent days, and few casualties were reported, the Myanmarese
military official said.
"They have opted to take up the line of least resistance for
the sake of their families who live there," he suggested.
The State Department spokesman said the uncontested deployment
of Myanmarese troops in the Ho Mong area "appears to be the
result of a successfully concluded peace agreement" between
Rangoon and Khun Sa's men.
"We are concerned that this apparent political agreement could
facilitate the continuing drug-trafficking operations of the Shan
United Army," Burns said.
Khun Sa was indicted in New York in 1989 on 10 charges
including conspiracy to import heroin following the seizure of
1,080 kilos of heroin in Bangkok in 1988.
He has denied involvement in drug trafficking, saying his
forces merely collected "taxes" on smugglers operating in MTA-
controlled territory to finance the ethnic Shan struggle for
autonomy from Yangon.