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Bkk post - Heroic Student move acro



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Bkk post - Heroic Student move across the border

Bangkok Post - Oct 23, 1999.
THAI - BURMESE RELATIONS
Student hostage-takers on the move across the border
Hoisting of fighting peacock flag hailed

The five pro-democracy gunmen who stormed the Burmese embassy in Bangkok
early this month are not in Thailand but on the run inside Burma, informed
sources said.

A senior member of the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW), who claimed
responsibility for the 25-hour embassy drama, told AFP the group was moving
between villages on the Burmese side of the border.

He said the group felt it had achieved its objectives in storming the
embassy. "Our flying the fighting peacock flag (of the democracy movement)
for 24 hours from the embassy was a tremendous victory for our movement,"
the source told AFP in an interview on the border.

"It was a historic event," he said, adding the group now felt more confident
than ever.

The gunmen stormed the embassy on Oct 1, holding 38 people hostage for more
than 24 hours and initially demanding the ruling military open talks with
the democratic opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Oct 2, Thai negotiators bowed to the gunmen's demands for an escape
helicopter to the jungled Thai-Burmese border.

The Burmese junta, which closed the border with Thailand after the incident,
has been critical of the Democrat-led government's handling of the crisis,
and has demanded it track down and arrest the gunmen.

Thailand has issued arrest warrants for two of the gunmen it says can be
identified, but has said it remains unclear if they are still in Thailand.

Another VBSW member told AFP one of the main goals of the embassy hostage
drama, codenamed "G3", was to grab international attention and send a
"wake-up message" to pro-democracy activists and fellow students inside
Burma.

He said that operation "G3" was also designed to send a message to the
junta, showing them just how much student activists were capable of.

He said that although the VBSW had close ties with a number of rebel groups
active on the Thai-Burmese border, including the Karen National Union and
the splinter Karen group God's Army, it was an independent movement.

He said that the VBSW was formed shortly before the planned 9/9/99 uprising,
or "Four Nines Movement," last month in which exiled dissidents encouraged
those inside Burma to replicate a mass uprising on Aug 8, 1988, or 8/8/88.

The VBSW member also denied junta claims that the group had received help
from foreign elements in executing the hostage drama.

"If they had received that kind of assistance, the hostage-taking would have
been better executed and more systematic."He also denied claims the
hostage-takers had stolen money from the embassy, but said that they had
taken a number of important documents with them.-AFP