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FTUB/NCFUB



Please try to post AASW mail to Burma net.

Thanks

burmanet@xxxxxxxxxxx
maykha-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Recent discussion of FTUB-related issues has broungt the Burmenet audience a
special interest in the history of Burmese pro-democracy leadership overseas.
Today's FTUB Affairs, mostly unknown to the majority of the revolutionary
groups, seem to have been established never around the past political
experiences of progressive Burmese students and activists while the dominating
groups only with a few people, namely NCGUB and FTUB, have made their
organizational system very different from those of their counterparts in
student-led activist groups and organizations in a eight-year-period since the
begining. 

The system of the Big Guys in NCGUB and FTUB has thus repeatedly enabled
occurrence of certain unjust, unpopular, unprincipled political experiments
within and among themselves. The result of these experiments usually carried
out in accordance with the demands of a few self-seeking individuals in FTUB
and NCGUB is an annual cash flow from naive non-Burmese funders all over the
world. To me, the most striking aspects of the overseas Burmese political
community is its radical students and activists representing the majority and
a handful of opportunistic politicians enjoying the current political deadlock
in Burma. Since 1991, the distinct characteristics between these two camps
have not been changed and improved even in some positive ways along with the
changes in the larger Burmese political environment watched and observed by
the international community leaders.    

>From now on, we, therefore, would like to focus our attention on how and why
NCGUB has not been able to provide the majority political forces other than
itself with reasonable leadership from an analytical view-point so that it
would possibly reach some meaningful decisions as to its organizational
development for the better. If the NCGUB did not have a desire to change its
organizational structure the way it has been run for the past eight years, the
NCGUB would keep losing supporters as it is right now and in the long run it
may not be able to turn to foreign funding organizations and governments to
accept increasing financial responsibilities for a few individuals who has
lied to and ignored the entire political forces which are supposed to be led
by NCGUB by all means.

The following is the excerpts from Ko Htun Aung Kyaw 's Red Booklet which I
want
to present to the Burmanet audience. I have asked the author (Ko Htun Aung
Kyaw) if I could post on the net the English version of some content contained
in his Red Booklet, so I took the liberty of translating some parts from this
book because my genuine interest in presenting the English translation is to
have as many people to understand the FTUB-related problems as possible. If
the audience knew little of the background, it would be difficult to read the
whole context. One man, not representing the labor forces inside Burma ( In
fact, there is no organized labor group anywhere), has no rights to name
himself a leader of FTUB and take adventage of naive funding orgainzations
abroad. Nor does he have any entitlement to rule our revolution as a king no
matter whoever stands behind him.    

aye aye soe win

-----------------------------------------
The Portrait of Maung Maung
------------------------------------------
The first person "I" is used to directly refer to Ko Htun Aung Kyaw the same
way as it is in his Burmese version of the Red Booklet. (Translator)

Maung Maung (now FTUB head) and I were both elected as student
respresentatives for the Geology Major freshman class in 1970-71. And when we
were in the sophormore year, Maung Maung came to me and said, "Tun Aung Kyaw,
you don't run for elections this year, I also won't run for the position of a
student representative. You see certain people don't want to work hard (for
the student body).

Upon hearing his persuation like this, I replied, "Well, if you say so, I
promise I won't run for elections. Afterwards Ko Shein Win, the then General
Secretary of Geology Major Students Association, came to convince me that I
should run for Sophomore Class representation. Ko Shein Win had asked me twice
to run for the elections, but I rejected his offers twice. Later Ko Maung
Maung became the sophomore class representative. So this is his (Maung"s
Maung's) background.

In 1988-89, I met Maung Maung again in Bangkok. At that time I was the
chairman of All Burma Students Democratic Front. Maung Maung said, " I am
recruiting student soldiers in the border town of Ranong and giving them
secret military training on an island around Margue Islands. I woulk like you
to endorse me as the Chairman of ABSDF."  While Maung Maung was proposing me
to recognize him this way, I, feeling the urge and attachment to a friendship,
had endorsed his man named Ye Tun, because he convinced me that he was
actually giving military training to his followers. Afterwards, I heard of
stories that Ye Tun was collecting money from the seamen in Ranong as an ABSDF
representative. I heard of such stories. Then I no longer heard about the
people taking military training on a Margue island.

In 1991, Maung Maung tried to borrow some money from me. Ko Aung (U Nu' son)
was
then broke, and Maung and Than Lwin too were facing financial problems.
Previously, I had agreeded that I would buy a pistol from Than Lwin for
10,000.00 Bahts (400.00 dollars), and so decided to give him 10,000.00 bahts
to get the pistol later. I never got the pistol though. The money was lost.
Never did Ko Than Lwin receive the money from Maung Maung.

Later I learned that it was almost overnight success that Maung Maung has
become the leader of FTUB at the recommandation of NCGUB after working for
NCGUB as a mere clerk. Even though I knew that he was never a representative
of labor groups in Burma, I was glad for his promotion because of my
recognition of our friendship.

When he was visiting Washington DC, I met him again there. He told me that he
wanted to loan a book on Burmese labor history from Cornell University. I felt
that he was manipulating again, but I managed to get him the book he wanted,
because he promised that he would return the book soon. I let him loan the
book not because he was a friend, but because I thought he would somehow work
on something that might benefit our revolution. Since then, the book has never
been returned. I had to pay fines for the lost item to the Cornell University
library. All these happenings are actual ones, all of which are facts, indeed.

All these accounts are revealing who is the liar and who violates a
friendship.

(Translation ends here.)
>From Page 4 of the  Red Booklet, Explanation on Charter '97 by Tun Aung Kyaw.
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