Burma Rebel Still Evading Capture

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Burma Rebel Still Evading  Capture 

                         By ROBERT HORN 
                         Associated Press Writer 
                         Saturday, May 3, 1997 5:45 am EDT 

                         BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Burma's last rebel leader
is living
                         safely inside that country's rugged, mountainous
border region,
                         despite a massive government offensive aimed at
capturing him, a
                         guerrilla leader said today. 

                         Gen. Bo Mya, the aging leader of the Karen National
Union, is still
                         directing rebel attacks on Burmese troops from a
highly mobile but
                         well-protected base camp inside Burma, said his son
Ner Dah. 

                         ``They won't capture him,'' Ner Dah, the Union's
assistant
                         secretary for foreign affairs, told The Associated
Press. 

                         The Karen have been fighting for autonomy from
Burma since
                         1949, but they have steadily lost ground to the
army over the
                         years. 

                         The Burmese broke off cease-fire negotiations in
February and
                         launched a military offensive that succeeded in
capturing key
                         Karen bases and large strips of territory near the
Thai border. 

                         They failed, however, to apprehend 70-year-old Bo
Mya. Long
                         commentaries in Burma's state-run media have
derided Bo Mya
                         and called on him to surrender in recent weeks. 

                         Ner Dah said there is no prospect of that happening. 

                         Although the Burmese army says it has secured its
border with
                         Thailand, and many areas are clearly now under
Rangoon's
                         control, the rebels say government troops are
afraid to leave their
                         bases for fear of land mines and guerrilla attacks. 

                         ``They are scared to move around,'' said Ner Dah. 

                         He added that the Karen were willing to continue
peace talks, and
                         said they'd had contact with Burmese negotiators in
recent weeks. 

                         ``But they just want us to lay down our arms and
surrender,'' he
                         said. ``We cannot.'' 

                         A meeting of 15 ethnic groups in January led by the
Karen incited
                         the Burmese army to attack, Ner Dah said. Several
of the groups
                         have already signed cease-fire agreements with the
Burmese and
                         are attending the military-run constitutional
convention in Rangoon.

                         Still, nearly all the ethnic groups signed a
communique at the end of
                         the meeting calling on the military government to
scrap the
                         convention and open three-way talks with ethnic
leaders and the
                         Burmese democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi. 

                         By reaching cease-fire pacts with most other ethnic
groups, the
                         Burmese have been able to concentrate their
firepower on the
                         Karen. 

                         The communique revealed that many of the ethnic
groups are less
                         than satisfied with life under the truce terms. 

                         The regime dismissed the meeting as a phony
creation of the
                         Karen, claiming the other ethnic representatives
were impostors.