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Myint Swe has little background in intelligence work—Burma’s former heads of intelligence were trained by the CIA, KGB or Mossad, but Myint Swe had no such training.

 

So far, Myint Swe’s department has been unable to catch any culprits involved in a series of bombings in Burma since mid-2005.  Kyaw Myint Myo said that a major failing of the new intelligence service has been its recruitment of inexperienced officials with no idea how an intelligence structure works.

 

I nodded my agreement. Recent information released by the regime shows that the intelligence-gathering network is in disarray. For instance in May, the regime announced that Shwe Sai, former vice-chairman of the Karen National Union and ex-head of the KNU’s 6th Brigade, held secret meetings in Mae Sot, Thailand, with exiled dissidents and discussed the dispatch of bombers to Burma. But Shwe Sai died three years ago.

 

Indeed, it’s good news, perhaps, that Burma’s intelligence agency now faces a credibility problem and is relying on inexperienced informants and spies. The long lists of terrorists and bombers published in state-run papers are more like a joke, and descriptions of wanted “terrorists” are bizarre. Most of them wear gold and diamond jewelry, according to the wanted-list descriptions intended to lead to their capture.

 

One list of wanted men says Thet Tun, of the Mae Sot-based Democratic Party for a New Society, “usually wears diamond earrings and a gold watch.”  It’s unclear whether he is thus adorned while planting bombs for the students’ army based along the Thai-Burmese border, which The New Light of Myanmar claims is his specialty. One young woman suspect, Moe Moe Aye, “usually wears a jade ring on her left middle finger.” Indeed, there are endless amusing descriptions of “terrorists.”

 

The irony is that suspects were announced only hours after the first of the Rangoon bombings. Obviously, the regime’s MAS has lost clout and only now may be trying to catch up.

 

New recruits, according to Kyaw Myint Myo, have received intensive training. But it takes time to build and effectively run an intelligence network like the OCMI.