A Press Conference Held

The Government of the Union Of Myanmar, in efforts to achieve its goals of building a modern and developed nation and establishing a realistic multi-party democracy has been assiduously laying down the required basic foundations

General Service Enterprises and
Private Banks to Dispel Unfounded Rumours
[ 10th February, 2003 ]

A press conference attended by local and foreign news correspondents was held at the Armed Forces Guest House on Inya Road at 10 am today.


Brig-Gen Than Tun extends greeting at the press conference with local and foreign correspondents.

At the news conference, Brig-Gen Than Tun explained the Government of the Union Of Myanmar, in efforts to achieve its goals of building a modern and developed nation and establishing a realistic multi-party democracy has been assiduously laying down the required basic foundations. During such an important period of political transition peace and stability are most essential. For, only if peace and stability prevail, will it be possible to bring about national reconciliation effectively and thereby lay down proper foundations and provide the basic principles to fulfill our aspirations for the building of a new nation. But, unfortunately at this time, some undesirable elements, who, have absconded from the country, in conspiracy with some terrorist insurgents are trying to panic the people to create large-scale unrest and disturbances in the country. It has been discovered that these disruptive elements have been plotting to commit sabotage and wreck the peace by conspiring with undesirable people within the country with whom they have established contacts.

So I would like to brief representative members of the media who are present today, on certain events that have led to the uncovering of some plots by absconding NLD terrorists to perpetrate bomb explosions, and how the members of their terrorist gang and the lackeys they had dispatched were apprehended. There is also material evidence showing that some members of the NLD party within the country have accepted cash from the NLD absconders to carry out anti-government acts and create disorder and unrest in the country. These plots have been uncovered and suitable action taken to foil their attempts.


Anti-Government pamphlet

On 11 December 2002 one Thet Nwe (a) Nyein Lu, who had been dispatched to Yangon to carry out underground activities by the absconding NLD and ABSDF terrorist gangs was apprehended in Shwe Pyi Thar township where he had been staying. Thet Nwe (a) Nyein Lu had,  in January 2000 illegally crossed over the border via Myeik and Dawei to Ranong in Thailand where he worked as a crew member on a Thai fishing trawler. Around October 2001 he was arrested by the Thai Police and sent to Maesot. While he was in Maesot he was persuaded by a member of the NLD absconder group, Tun Aung Gyaw to join his group and thus became a member. He then attended the NLD Political Defiance  training course, the human rights and media training courses and later took on the duties of organizer of the absconding NLD group.


Distribution chart of Anti-Government pamphlet

He had also attended the explosive training course conducted at Waw Le Khee camp. Waw Le Khee camp is situated west of the Ohn Pyan refugee camp in Thailand, which lies south of Myawaddy. An armed NLD terrorist camp is located in a forest about a mile away from this refugee camp. This NLD camp has a strength of about 50 men all equipped with weapons. These weapons were supplied by the NCGUB group led by absconder Sein Win who paid for the weapons with cash solicited and obtained from international groups. According to information received there are other similar terrorist camps in the area.

On 3 November 2002, the said Thet Nwe (a) Nyein Lu left Maesot for Yangon accompanied by one Thin Thin Oo in nun’s clothing, and laid low for a time in Shwe Pyi Thar Township. He had to travel in the company of Thin Thin Oo in nun’s garb because he had no national registration identity card and therefore had to hide behind the nun’s robes to avoid inspection during the journey.


Their plan was to distribute these pamphlets as widely as possible with the title of "The United front of Students and Sangha"

Two other groups had also infiltrated the country. One group proceeded to Mandalay while Thet Nwe and the other group went to Yangon and the Delta region. The tasks of these groups were to collect political intelligence and to organize and recruit ex-convicts to join the underground. Nyein Lu also was assigned the task of exploding a bomb near Insein Prison. The task of the group sent to Mandalay was to organize the members of the NLD party in Mandalay and together lead a procession from Mandalay to Yangon bearing a brass replica of the NLD emblem of a ‘Khamauk’ (peasant headgear) and to incite the people in a mass unrest. Moreover, arrangements had also been made for this group to explode a bomb in the vicinity of Thazi Rail Station control tower.

While surveillance was being carried out concerning these subversive activities, two women Thin Thin Oo and Ma Than Htay, wearing the robes of Buddhist nuns staged a demonstration by shouting in front of the Yangon City Hall on 6 January 2003, so they had been apprehended immediately. These two demonstrators had been sent to Yangon according to a plot hatched and arranged by Thein Win of the NLD absconders and were not bona fide nuns. In fact as I explained to you at the previous press conference Ma Than Htay had donned the robes of a nun just before she began her journey to Yangon.

 
There is also material evidence showing that some members of the NLD party within the country have accepted cash from the NLD absconders to carry out anti-government acts and create disorder and unrest in the country.

After Thet Nwe (a) Nyein Lu, Thin Thin Oo and Ma Than Htay had been detained and investigations were proceeding concerning attempts made by absconding NLD terrorists to infiltrate the country, further information was received that  one Maung Maung Myint residing at N0: 1374, Thunanda Street, Nya Ward of North Okkalappa Township had been in contact with dissident groups in Thailand and that he was making arrangements to join Htay Aung of the ABSDF residing in Maesot. In investigations carried out to confirm this, it was further discovered that Maung Maung Myint was planning to distribute anti-government propaganda pamphlets. He was therefore taken into custody in the teashop at the corner the Sanpya Hospital in Thingangyun Township on 5 February 2003. At the time of arrest he had on his person 400 pamphlets entitled “The World Political Manifesto”. A search of his house further resulted in the confiscation of 50 more similar anti-government pamphlets.

On further questioning of Maung Maung Myint, it was found that  although these pamphlets had been written by him he had handed over the draft to Vice President of the Kamayut branch of the NLD Khin Win (a) Pho Taw for editing. Khin Win (a) Pho Taw after editing the draft had taken responsibility for its printing. Moreover, it was found that Khin Win (a) Pho Taw had also given Maung Maung Myint Kyat 40,000 as fare for his journey to contact Htay Aung of the ABSDF in Maesot.

Khin Win (a) Pho Taw, although a recognized member of the NLD and was vice president of the NLD Kamayut Branch, was at the same time  in touch with clandestine terrorist organization committing subversive acts. He was also frequently seen in the company of ex-convicts and underground elements and holding political discussions with them. It was during the course of such discussions that he had formed an illegal organization calling it the Total Revolutionary Committee (TRC) and then set about to establish close contacts with absconding insurgent groups.  In January 2002, he sent one Maung Maung Aye resident of the new Shwepaukkan satellite town, to Myawaddy to establish communications with Aung Saw Oo of the expatriate NCGUB, who had at one time served time together with Khin Win (a) Pho Taw. Maung Maung Aye first met with absconding NLD members Than Htut and Tin Aung and through them met with Aung Saw Oo. Aung Saw Oo wrote a letter to Khin Win (a) Pho Taw, and Tin Aung and Than Htut of the absconding NLD also wrote to him. In their letters they told him to continue and step up seditious activities, and to send to the expatriate NLD and NCGUB groups any written materials and announcements issued by the NLD and other political parties.

At the beginning of September 2002, Maung Maung Aye paid a second visit to Maesot. He carried with him pamphlets and announcements issued by the NLD and a collection of news on the political situation and movements in the country, and delivered them to the NLD absconders and the NCGUB. On this second trip dissident groups in Maesot told him that   they would provide nineteen hundred thousand kyats as funds for dissident activities to be carried out in Yangon. It was specially intended as funds for subversive movements and as assistance for ex-convicts.


Assistant fund from Exile Dissident

After an interval of 2 months, Maung Maung Aye visited Maesot for the third time to keep up contacts with the absconding insurgent groups. Then after Maung Maung Aye returned to Yangon via Myawaddy he went to meet a certain U Soe Myint at his shop in Mingala Market on 4 December. U Soe Myint then gave him a cheque for nineteen hundred thousand kyats, which he cashed at the Asia Wealth Bank of Mingala Market. This cash was the funds provided by the dissident groups of Maesot. The means of transferring the cash was as follows: - a merchant of Maesot by the name of Ma Po asked the help of one Ma Thida of Kawkareik who regularly purchased goods made in Thailand from Ma Po which she sold wholesale to Yangon. Ma Po told Ma Thida that she wished to transfer a sum of kyat 19,000,000 to a woman called Daw Amar in Yangon and asked for her help. Ma Thida then contacted her acquaintance U Soe Myint who had an outstanding amount of kyat 20,000,000 to pay Ma Thida. Ma Thida told U Soe Myint to pay one Daw Amar who would come to see him the sum of kyat 19,000,000 out of the 20,000,000 kyats that he owed her. After tying up these detailed arrangements Maung Maung Aye went to see U Soe Myint who asked for Daw Amar’s national registration card for identification purposes. Then he wrote a cheque to be drawn from the Asia Wealth Bank of Mingala Market Branch for the specified amount of kyat 19,000,000.  Out of this amount Maung Maung Aye took thirty thousand kyats as travel expense and another kyat 300,000 for his own investment and gave the remaining amount of kyat 15,070,000 to Khin Win (a) Pho Taw. From this amount Khin Win gave kyat 70,000 to Soe Lay (a) Soe Naing Win to open a teashop at the Theinchaung crossroads in New South Dagon Township and he invested the balance at an interest rate of 3% with the owners of ‘Seit Taing Kya’ teashop at Ma Po Street, Myenigon, Aung Htaik and his cousin Zaw Weik. Out of the first month’s interest of kyat 45,000 earned, he then gave kyat 40,000 as travel expenses to Maung Maung Myint who was scheduled to go to Maesot to establish contacts with Htay Aung of the ABSDF.

I would now like to give a clarification on the letter confiscated from Maung Maung Myint. On 28 January 2003, Khin Win (a) Pho Taw on receiving a draft of a document with the title of “The United Front of Students and Sangha” handwritten by Maung Maung Myint, showed it to secretary (1) of the Shan National League for Democracy U Sai Nyunt Lwin. U Sai Nyunt Lwin then typed a fair copy on his office computer and gave it to Khin Win (a) Pho Taw. After Maung Maung Myint received this fair copy from Khin Win (a) Pho Taw he made a thousand copies using the photocopier of the “Ein Shin Ma” mini market (1) located near the Shwegondine traffic lights. He gave 500 each of these subversive pamphlets to Maung Maung Than and Maung Maung Myint. Next Maung Maung Myint gave 50 of these pamphlets to member of the Thingangyun Township Branch of the NLD, Tin Aye. Their plan was to distribute these pamphlets as widely as possible.

These pamphlets used the name of a fictitious organization “The United Front of Students and Sangha” with intent to mislead the people and it also contained seditious and false statements against the government.

After Maung Maung Aye had withdrawn the above mentioned cash funded by the absconding NLD from the Asia Wealth Bank and he had given the balance to Khin Win (a) Pho Taw he kept a watch on the latter to see how he would spend the money. He found out that Khin Win (a) Pho Taw, although he had invested the balance with the “Seik Taing Kya” teashop and regularly drawn the monthly interest it generated, he had not used it to fund any political movement and he felt great resentment.

So, in December 2002, he went to Maesot to meet with Than Htut of the absconding NLD and told him about how Khin Win (a) Pho Taw was controlling the funds. He added that he would like to part ways from Khin Win (a) Pho Taw and form a nine-member committee. He explained that although it was called a nine-member committee he would make sure that there would be full representation from the 14 states and divisions and that from these 14 representatives he would expand the committee further by organizing and recruiting 2 members each. The committee would be expanded till it reached a total of 200 members. Then Maung Maung Aye as first leader of the nine-member committee would march on the People’s Square and the Sule Pagoda to stage a demonstration beginning from 27 April. On 28 April second leader, NLD party member of Dallah Township Tun Yin would continue the demonstration and that they would carry on in this way until all members had completed their turns.

Maung Maung Aye therefore on his return to Yangon on 3 January 2003 formed the planned nine-member committee in his house. On the day formation began, there were five person present, consisting of Maung Maung Aye, Tun Yin of Dallah NLD, Thaung Kyi of North Okkalappa NLD, Thein Kyi of Shwe Pyi Thar NLD, and joint secretary of Thanlyin NLD, Tin Hsan. But it was found that four others Soe Myint of Nyaung-U NLD, Maung Maung Than of South Dagon NLD, Pho Aye of Hlaing Thayar NLD and Khin Soe of Kungyankon NLD were included in the list of committee members.

In conclusion I would like to state that the Government, which has  full responsibility during this period of political transition, believes sincerely that all political activities should be peaceful and disciplined.  However, some of those who are politically active today are still trapped in outdated views of 1988 and are therefore negatively engaged in trying to search for weaknesses and faults in the Armed Forces Government and are intent on exaggerating any little incident in order to instigate a mob to create unrest and chaos. They then want to manipulate the situation in such a way so as to to proceed to underground activities of sabotage and destruction. With this in mind they have thus established contacts with clandestine illegal organizations, and accepted funds from them.

The authorities concerned will certainly uncover and stop such illegal activities. In the incidents mentioned above those who have been detained are being questioned and investigated in accordance with the law. Legal advice is being sought and if any action is taken they will be given a fair trial in a court of justice in accordance with existing laws.

Briefing on General Service Enterprises and Private Banks to Dispel Unfounded Rumours 

By Chairman of the Union Of Myanmar Central Bank U Kyaw Kyaw Maung

Today I would like to give a clarification on today’s situation regarding the general services enterprises and the repercussions this has had on private banking enterprises. I would like to state that the rumours concerning the private banks are not true and I would therefore like to request the public not to give credence to them. I wish therefore to give you an account of the true situation concerning the private banks and explain to you that there is no cause for anxiety about them. They are operating regularly and the public need have no fear of doing business with the private banking sector.

The Press Conference concluded at 10.45 a.m.