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NEWS - Thai Officials Negotiate wit



Subject: NEWS - Thai Officials Negotiate with Hostage-Takers at Embassy

(POSTED by CNN on OCTOBER 4th)
Thai Officials Negotiate with Hostage-Takers at Embassy
  
An unidentified person, believed to be a hostage, appears to surrender
inside the besieged Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok on Friday    
 
 
October 2, 1999
Web posted at: 6:56 a.m. HKT (2256 GMT)

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Thai authorities pursued negotiations through
the night Friday with a dozen young Myanmar dissidents who took over
their country's embassy in Bangkok at gunpoint and seized about 30
hostages, including several foreigners. 

Hundreds of police surrounded the walled embassy compound, floodlit by
special trucks brought in as night fell. Senior police officials were
bargaining with the anti-government activists, offering to trade food
and water for the release of hostages. 

Bangkok police commander Lt. Gen. Wannarat Kotcharak said the hostages
included three Frenchmen, two Malaysians, one Canadian, one Singaporean,
one Japanese and at least five Thais, in addition to Myanmar diplomats.
The foreigners were probably at the embassy to obtain visas. 

   AUDIO 
An unidentified Canadian hostage describes the situation from inside the
embassy 

342 K/30 sec.
AIFF or WAV sound

Gunshots are fired during the conversation with the hostage 

446 K/50 sec.
AIFF or WAV sound
 
 
  
   ALSO 
Myanmar embassy siege a departure for dissidents

 
 
  
 
 
Other tallies of the hostages and their nationalities varied somewhat,
with earlier reports including a German and an American among those
held. Unconfirmed reports suggested some other people were hiding within
the compound. 

In a statement sent to news media, the dissidents -- calling themselves
the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors -- demanded the release of all
political prisoners in their military-ruled homeland, a dialogue between
Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military, and
the convening of an elected parliament. 

The government of Myanmar, or Burma, has refused to negotiate with Nobel
Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi or to convene the parliament legally
elected in 1990. 

One of the dissidents said in a phone call with a local radio station
that they wanted a helicopter to fly them and some hostages to the
Thai-Myanmar frontier, where the Myanmar rebel movement is based. Police
said the issue had not been raised in negotiations. 

Armed with rifles and grenades, the dissidents stormed through the
embassy gate about 11 a.m. Friday, witnesses said. 

Oun Hompromee, the embassy gardener and one of three men who escaped the
compound early Friday evening, said he and a Thai policeman working as a
security guard were accosted by four of the intruders, who forced the
two men at gunpoint to take the dissidents to the ambassador's office.
The envoy had left the compound 30 minutes earlier. 

Oun said that he was able to sneak away as the students gathered
hostages, and he hid until he was able to escape. 

Police said they believed no hostages had been hurt, supporting claims
made by the dissidents in communication with local media. 

In their prepared statement, however, the group warned that if the
Myanmar government doesn't heed their demands, "it is fully responsible
for the consequences of this action." 

 MYANMAR  
  
Myanmar, also known as Burma, won independence from Britain in 1948 and
has been ruled by the military in various guises since 1962. In 1990 the
junta refused to recognize elections that gave Aung San Suu Kyi's party
a landslide victory. The military, until 1994, refused dialogue with Suu
Kyi, its most formidable opponent since it seized direct power in 1988
by bloodily crushing a pro-democracy uprising. The junta suppresses
almost all political opposition. Troops regularly patrol the streets to
stop demonstrations. Hundreds of members of Suu Kyi's party have been
detained. The army has frequently been accused of brutality and murder
in ethnic areas. Suu Kyi herself lives in circumstances akin to house
arrest. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.  
 
 
Gunshots were heard several times in the early hours of the siege. Two
dissidents fired off an eight-shot salute in early afternoon as they
took down the Myanmar flag and raised a red standard emblazoned with a
fighting peacock, the symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. 

Police SWAT teams were on the scene within an hour of the takeover, as
were police dogs and their handlers. Sharpshooters took up positions in
nearby tall buildings. 

A student leader from a Myanmar refugee camp was brought to the embassy
as an intermediary. 

Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, who arrived at the scene after
nightfall, said Thai authorities would not use force. 

A Myanmar government statement, received in Bangkok, said Ambassador Hla
Maung was working with Thai authorities to secure release of the
hostages. 

Dissident Myanmar groups worked to distance themselves from the
takeover. 

"We would like to say we were not involved in that matter and we don't
know anything about it," dissident leader Naing Aung said by telephone. 

Naing Aung, chairman of the exile All Burma Students' Democratic Front,
said he had never heard of the Vigorous Student Burmese Warriors, and
thought it may have been formed specifically for the takeover. 

The militants at the embassy claimed in their statement to have no ties
to any other group. 

Copyright 1999 The Associated