A NLD Member Arrested after Tuesday Blast

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

A township-level leader of Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been arrested in connection with a bomb attack on an office of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in Rangoon on Tuesday (1 Jul).

NLD sources told The Irrawaddy on Friday that Khin Maung, 62, an executive member of the Shwepyithar Township branch of the NLD, was taken away by secret police on Tuesday evening. The sources added that the authorities gave family members no reason for the arrest.

“As far as I know, he had nothing to do with the explosion. He seriously believes in non-violence, which is also party policy,” said an NLD member from Shwepyithar who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think the authorities are just using him as a scapegoat for this blast.”

Nyan Win, a spokesperson for the NLD, confirmed Khin Maung’s arrest, but declined to offer further comment.

Witnesses said on Tuesday that the explosion occurred at dawn on July 1, apparently targeting the Shwepyithar Township office of the USDA. No one was injured in the incident.

Security in Rangoon, Burma’s largest city, has been tightened since the blast. Active members of the USDA have reportedly been ordered to be on guard against further attacks against their offices.

The Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, a dissident group that seized control of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok in 1999, has taken credit for the blast. The group also said in a statement that they carried out two previous bomb blasts in downtown Rangoon last April.

Meanwhile, four members of the NLD in Taunggok Township, Arakan State, were each given one-year prison sentences on June 27 for campaigning against a constitution drafted by the ruling junta. They were arrested in March after they distributed flyers urging voters to reject the charter in a May 10 referendum.