Opposition Groups Deny Involvement in May Bombing

An association of Thai-Burmese border-based opposition groups today denied the Burmese government’s accusations that they were involved in a series of deadly bombings in Rangoon last May.

The Thailand-based Network for Democracy and Development said such charges have become routine with Burma’s ruling junta. “They have made such charges many times before,” Htay Aung, the NDD spokesperson, told The Irrawaddy by phone on Thursday.

According to state-run newspapers, Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan said that 27-year-old Yunod, also known as Aung Cho Oo, was arrested as a "terrorist" with the NDD.

The organization was founded in 2001 by former members of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, which continues its armed opposition to Burma’s military government in eastern Burma.

On May 7 last year, four bombs exploded at Dagon Center and Junction-8 shopping centers, and at the Yangon [Rangoon] Trade Center, where a Thai trade fair was in progress. The near-simultaneous explosions killed 23 people and injured more than 150, according to official reports. Witnesses in Rangoon, however, claimed that the casualties were much higher than government figures.

The junta was quick to blame several dissident groups based along the Thai-Burmese border. 

At a Tuesday briefing in Lashio, in Burma’s Shan State, Yunod told reporters that he wasn’t involved in the bomb blasts, but was ordered by Thein Win, who was described by government officials as a leader of the NDD, to gather intelligence about security around the bombing sites.

A Rangoon-based journalist told The Irrawaddy that the charges don’t hold up. “The government is still lacking hard evidence, and basically it’s the same old theory.”

The ABSDF also denied any involvement in bombings, but the group acknowledged that Khun Kyaw, who was arrested last month along with some 50 other rebels from the Shan State Army (South), was a former member of the ABSDF.

The junta has accused Khun Kyaw—also known as Myint Soe and Thangyaung—of leading the notorious Kachin Massacre on February 12, 1992, in which 15 ABSDF soldiers were killed by fellow members on suspicions that they were spying for Rangoon. During the Lashio briefing, authorities used testimony from seven survivors of the massacre to support charges of torture and killing by Khun Kyaw.

Burma’s information minister also said during the briefing that two members of the ABSDF had been arrested in the northwestern border town of Tamu—about 820 kilometers (510 miles) north of Rangoon, near the Indian border—for two explosions last month at a busy weekend market that injured two people.

Last month two Burmese pro-democracy activists were arrested by an unidentified armed group in Moreh, India. The raid might have been carried out by Burmese troops or a proxy militia comprising border-based Manipuri rebels, local activists said.