Myanmar Rebel Leader Bo Mya Dies After Long Illness

A veteran leader of Myanmar's ethnic Karen rebel movement, which is fighting one of the world's longest-running insurgencies, has died aged 79, rebel officials said on Sunday.

General Bo Mya of the Karen National Union (KNU) is shown saluting during celebrations of the KNU's 50th year of fighting for an autonomous state in eastern Myanmar, in this January 31, 1999 file photo. Bo Mya has died, aged 79, a rebel official said on Sunday.

Bo Mya, the 79-year-old former leader of the ethnic Karen insurgency in Myanmar, died Sunday in a Thai provincial hospital, Karen and hospital sources said.

"It's a big loss for our struggle," said Mahn Sha Lah Phan,the current general secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU), and a former personal aide to Bo Mya between 1988 to 1995.

A funeral for Bo Mya is planned in the next few days in the Karen State of Myanmar. While Bo Mya's passing marks the end of an era for the nearly six-decades of Karen struggle, his demise will not lead to a change in strategy for the movement, KNU officials said.

"Our policy has not changed," Mahn Sha said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "We have set down our principles and we will stand by that."

He added the KNU will continue to seek a political dialogue with Myanmar's military government in an effort to find a peaceful solution to their conflict with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as ruling junta calls itself.

"For the KNU, we want to solve the problem through political means but now nothing is happening because the SPDC doesn't have a dialogue strategy," said Mahn Sha.

Bo Mya, who was president of the KNU rebel movement for almost three decades before his retirement from all active duties in 2004, was known for his tough stance against Myanmar's military regime and refusal to consider a ceasefire agreement as other ethnic rebels have opted for.

He had been suffering from a variety of ailments, including high blood pressure and diabetes, for years.

"He died at 1:00 a.m.," said Suwanna, a spokesperson for the Phra Wah Hospital in Mae Sot, Tak province, about 600 kilometres north of Bangkok.

The KNU was the first ethnic minority group to rebel against Myanmar's Rangoon-based central government following the country's independence in 1948 from its former colonial master Britain.

The KNU, seeking the autonomy of the Karen State, declared independence in 1949 and even sent troops to attack Rangoon, prompting a host of other ethnic minority groups such as the Shan, Mon and Kachin to launch similar independence struggles for their traditional territories in Myanmar's hinterland.

But the KNU and its military arm, the Karen National Liberation Army, have been on the decline as a rebel force since the fall of its headquarters at Manerplaw, near the Thai border, in 1994.

Today it is the last insurgent group that continues to actively oppose the military junta and refuses to sign a ceasefire or surrender pact, prompting annual offensives in the Karen State that have driven an estimated 140,000 civilian refugees to Thai-Myanmar border camps.

An estimated 15,000 Karen were forced out of their homes and villages in the Karen State during the first three months of this year in what the military government claims is an effort to secure the area. But the Karen see as an effort to destroy them as a people and drive them from their traditional homeland.
ref:bkkpost