Junta Climbs Aboard the ‘Anti-Terror’ Bandwagon By Aung Zaw NOVEMBER, 2006 - VOLUME 14 NO.11 COMMENTS (0) RECOMMEND (146) FACEBOOK TWITTER PLUSONE MORE E-MAIL PRINT TEXT SIZE (Page 2 of 5) Few returned to Rangoon to continue their struggle. There were, however, determined Burmese rebels who thought the time had come to stage actions to bring the Burma issue before the eyes of the world and win international support by highlighting the plight of the Burmese people. In October 1989, two young activists named Ye Yint and Ye Thiha sneaked into Burma from Thailand and hijacked a Burmese airliner. The hijackers forced the Fokker 28, on a scheduled flight from Mergui to Rangoon, to land at a Thai military air base, U-Tapao. The incident ended without bloodshed—the hijackers freed all 83 passengers after a nine-hour standoff. Ye Yint and Ye Thiha said they had seized the plane to draw attention to human rights abuses in Burma. They were consigned to a Thai special detention center until 1992, and were treated well, and with respect. Thailand’s chief negotiator in the crisis, former deputy premier Gen Thienchai Sirisamphan, offered the two sanctuary and protection after their release. One year later, two young Burmese, disguising a bar of soap as a weapon, hijacked a Thai Airways international jet on a scheduled flight from Bangkok to Rangoon, forcing it to land in Calcutta. Passengers and crew were unharmed. The two were sentenced to short prison terms, amid rumors that some Indian officials were behind the hijack—New Delhi strongly supported the Burmese democracy movement at that time. In both incidents, the hijackers received sympathetic media attention and were hailed as heroes, in Burma and abroad. Despite the media attention, the hijacks were not Burma’s first. In fact, Burma probably experienced the world’s first aircraft hijacking, when in 1954 a Karen rebel group, the Karen National Democratic Organization, seized a domestic airliner and forced it to land at Ngapali beach.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 03:59:35 +0000
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