Myanmar dissidents say embassy host

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Reply-To: "koko" <koko@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Myanmar dissidents say embassy hostage crisis a "wake up call"

Thailand-Myanmar-dissent,2ndlead
   Myanmar dissidents say embassy hostage crisis a "wake up call"
   ATTENTION - ADDS Thai minister quote of no crackdown ///

   BANGKOK, Oct 2 (AFP) - Exiled Myanmar dissidents Saturday deplored the
violent tactics of radical student gunmen who stormed the Myanmar embassy
here
taking nearly 40 hostages, but said the action should be seen as a "wake up
call" by ASEAN.
   The captors called for democracy in Myanmar, demanding the junta start
talks with Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League of Democracy (NLD)
and the release all political prisoners.
   The gunmen, calling themselves the "Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors,"
fled in a helicopter supplied by Thai authorities.
   However, dissidents and democracy activists based in Bangkok said they
rejected the use of violence in the struggle to overthrow decades-old
military
rule in Myanmar.
   "The hostage crisis is very dangerous for the non-violent pro-democracy
movement," said Debbie Stothard from the Alternative ASEAN Network on Asia.
   Stothard said she feared a backlash against democracy activists and
issued
a tearful plea for Thai police to refrain from launching a crackdown on
exiled
dissident groups.
   "Dissidents living in Bangkok are leaving their homes out of fear that
the
police will come and arrest them," she said.
   But Thai Interior Minister Sanan Kachonprasart said law-abiding Myanmar
dissidents had nothing to fear.
   "As long as the students don't commit crimes in our country, then they
are
free to express their views," he said.
   Human rights groups and Myanmar dissidents released a statement warning
Myanmar's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners that the
hostage crisis should be considered a "wake up call."
   "The event is a grim reminder that there are consequences for failing to
achieve peaceful positive changes in Burma," said the statement, signed by
nine organisations.
   "The best way to prevent such unfortunate events from recurring in
ASEAN's
front yard is to engage in a peaceful, political process at an early stage,"
it said.
   The gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles and grenades stormed the embassy just
before noon Friday taking diplomats, Thais and a number of foreigners
hostage.
   Many bursts of gunfire were heared from within the embassy during the
24-hour hostage crisis, but none of the hostages was seriously injured.
   Most, if not all the hostages, are now believed to have been released.
   The latest group of 23 was released at a makeshift helicopter landing pad
a
few kilometers (miles) from the embassy in exchange for Thai Deputy Foreign
Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra and another official, an AFP reporter on the
scene said.
   The helicopter carrying the new hostages and five gunmen is believed to
be
have landed near the Thai-Myanmar border.
   Police had earlier said 12 gunmen were behind the attack, but they now
say
only five men were involved.
   Myanmar was admitted to ASEAN in 1997, despite criticism from western
nations of the junta's poor human rigths record.
   ASEAN maintains the best way to bring about change in Myanmar is through
"constructive engagement."
   Dissidents have been locked in a long-running and bitter struggle for
democracy with the junta.
   Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won an overwhelming victory in 1990
elections ignored by the military.
   The NLD has consistently rejected the use of violence to bring about
democratic change.
   The Yangon junta has been condemned around the world for widespread human
rights abuses including the systematic rape and torture of ethnic
minorities,
the use of slave labour and political imprisonment.
   smo-gw/nj