The Spook goes Down

Brig-Gen Kyaw Thein (Ethnic Nationalities and Ceasefire Groups, Drugs Suppression and Naval and Air Intelligence) is still free, while Brig-Gen Thein Swe (International Relations), the father of Myanmar Times newspaper co-founder “Sonny” Myat Swe, prudently retired a week or two before the putsch and since October 18 has been claiming to be suffering from amnesia.

There has been a flurry of house searches and asset seizures—not least the Burma Army’s takeover of Bagan Cybertech Ltd, the Internet server run by Ye Naing Win and OCMI Deputy Department Head Col Tin Oo.

The only senior OCMI employee unaccounted for is Deputy Chief Maj-Gen Kyaw Win. It’s likely that he was complicit in the coup (he was a prot?g? of Sr-Gen Than Shwe), perhaps feeding his immediate superior false information at intelligence briefings. As PM with a hectic public schedule, Khin Nyunt had no time to oversee day-to-day spook operations. However, circumstantial evidence suggests that he wasn’t taken entirely by surprise.

On September 12 Khin Nyunt and a party of cabinet ministers and bureaucrats made a goodwill visit to Singapore. Its believed that during that time, the entire 70-man OCMI detachment at Muse on the Chinese border (including the border Security Department, better known by its Burmese acronym Na Sa Ka) was arrested by troops from the Northeast Regional Command on corruption charges and transported to Mandalay. The decision to bust them can only have come from the top.

The PM and his party returned to Rangoon on September 17. The next day the SPDC announced the “retirement” of both the minister of foreign affairs and his deputy (who had just returned from Singapore with Khin Nyunt) and the ministers of agriculture and irrigation and transport, the appointment of four replacements and the reshuffling of five other portfolios.

The SPDC orders were all signed by Lt-Gen Soe Win, at that time Secretary-1 of the SPDC. Khin Nyunt must have had a fair idea of what was to come. According to several sources, when the OCMI building was raided on October 18, a number of important, incriminating files were missing. There is speculation that the PM spirited the documents out of the country to be used as bargaining tools in the event of his being purged. The question that remains unanswered is what was the motivation for the coup?

There are two main theories: friction over control of business turf or that Khin Nyunt was becoming too powerful. The business turf argument is not backed by any real evidence—the families and cronies of the elite all got a piece of the action. The “Khin Nyunt too powerful” theory is similarly unsubstantiated—since being appointed PM in August 2003 he has looked increasingly marginalized and ineffectual.

His seven-point road map to political reform, unveiled shortly after taking office, was derailed at the first stop—the constitution-drafting National Convention, convened in May, was adjourned indefinitely in early July. The ceasefire with the Karen National Union, negotiated by his subordinates at the OCMI, was ignored by the Burma Army, which continued to attack Karen troops and civilians. It looked very much as though Than Shwe and Maung Aye were deliberately (and successfully) undermining him.

Khin Nyunt had no combat troops under his command, so no ability to pull a coup. Possibly he was trying to use patronage to buy the loyalty of field commanders, but there is no evidence yet (the rumor that three Light Infantry Division commanders were detained in the purge is still to be confirmed). His wife had built up a modest patronage-dispensing machine through her presidency of the Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, but it was of little relevance.