Thread: Burma : Two dead in bomb blast

Two dead in Burma bomb blast
6/08/2010

Two people were killed in a bomb blast Friday near a town market in an insurgency-plagued region in southeastern Burma, an official in the military-ruled country said.



A Burma worker cleans a pagoda at a Buddhist temple in Myawaddy in 2007. At least two people were killed in a bomb blast near a town market in an insurgency-plagued region in southeastern Burma, an official in the military-ruled country said.

The evening explosion occurred in the town of Myawaddy near the border with Thailand, an area where ethnic Karen fighters are battling the government.

"Two men died. The authorities assume that they could be bombers and were killed themselves accidentally as they planted the bombs near the market. Their bodies were scattered because of the blasts and also their motorcycles were destroyed," said the official, who did not want to be named.

Eight other people were injured in the incident, according to a local resident at the scene.

The blast came as the secretive country prepares for elections planned for this year that critics have dismissed as a sham due to the effective barring of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because she is a serving prisoner.

Burma has been hit by several bomb blasts in recent years, which the junta has blamed on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.

Three bombs rocked a park in the main city Rangoon in April as thousands of revellers celebrated an annual water festival, leaving 10 people dead and dozens wounded.

Police blamed that attack on the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, a name used in the past by a militant exile group opposed to the ruling junta.

The military has ruled Burma since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.

Armed minorities in Karen and Shan states continue to fight the government along the country's eastern border alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.

The regime recently stepped up its decades-long campaign against the rebels in an apparent attempt to crush them before the polls, expected some time later this year.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the last polls in 1990 by a landslide but the military never allowed the party to take power.

Suu Kyi has spent much of the past 20 years in jail or under house arrest and is barred from standing in the next polls because she is a serving prisoner.

Rights group Amnesty International in February called on the regime to end repression of ethnic minority groups ahead of the vote, accusing the regime of arresting, jailing, torturing and killing minority activists to crush dissent.

The NLD opted to boycott the vote because of rules laid down by the junta that would have effectively forced it to expel Suu Kyi and other members in prison before it could participate.

As a result, the party was forcibly disbanded by the ruling generals.

A group of former NLD members has formed a new party, the National Democratic Force (NDF), to stand in the election -- a move that has put it at odds with Suu Kyi, who was opposed to participating in the polls.

bangkokpost.com

Security heightened at the Thai-Myanmar border areas
Nereita Tancharoen

BANGKOK, 7 August 2010 (NNT) — Security measures have been heightened along the Thai-Myanmar border areas following a bomb blast in the town of Myawaddy, Myanmar on Friday night.

Officers of the Mae Sot Taskforce, in Mae Sot district of Tak province have been deployed along the Thai-Myanmar border areas in order to prevent any movements of the Myanmar's anti-government group who use the Thai territory as their base.

The bomb explosion took place near a local night market in the border town of Myawaddy in Kayin state on Friday evening. A source says that the task forces have been fully deployed in Myawaddy by the Myanmar junta to give a thorough inspection towards the movements of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Brigade 5, whose commander, Na Kham Mwe, continues to refuse to transform into a Border Guard Force as requested by the Myanmar Government.

Meanwhile, the Thai-Myanmar border still remains sealed and no trade movements have been reported since mid-July.

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