A series of bombings earlier this year has revived memories of similar incidents in the past. But could they also foreshadow the shape of things to come?

When three bomb blasts ripped through a pavilion set up as part of the Burmese New Year’s celebrations in Rangoon on April 15, killing 10 people and injuring 168 others, the reaction from the authorities was predictable. On May 6, police chief Brig-Gen Khin Yi held a press conference to announce that four suspects linked to anti-government “terrorist” groups based on the Thai-Burmese border had been identified, including one who was in police custody.

Little in the way of evidence was presented. But speaking to a gallery of reporters who were careful to avoid asking any probing questions, Khin Yi left no doubt about who he thought was behind the attacks—the usual assortment of anti-junta exile groups—or why they would commit such a horrific act of violence: “to disrupt the peace and tranquility of our country, instil fear and unrest among the general public and eventually to dissolve the 2010 elections.”

Burmese police chief Brig-Gen Khin Yi speaks to repoters at a press briefing in Naypyidaw.(Photo: AP)

While Khin Yi offered no specifics about what led the police to Phyo Wai Aung, Burmese military intelligence sources said that he was singled out as a prime suspect because of an unreported incident involving Maj-Gen Wai Lwin, the commander of the Naypyidaw Regional Military Command. According to sources, an explosive device was discovered in Wai Lwin’s home at the Cherry Garden Housing Estate in Rangoon’s South Okkalapa Township earlier this year. It was believed that an employee of the Sakura Construction Company, which built the estate, had planted the bomb. When an investigation revealed Phyo Wai Aung’s personal connection to Thiha Zaw, a former member of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), Phyo Wai Aung became the natural fall guy for the Thingyan (Burmese New Year) bombings, said observers.

With Phyo Wai Aung in their custody, the authorities could conveniently tie the bombings to virtually every group operating along the Thai-Burmese border, beginning with the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW), which had earned notoriety more than a decade ago by seizing control of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok in October 1999 and raiding a hospital in Thailand’s Ratchaburi Province a few months later.

“We find that the VBSW operates under guidance by [ABSDF], which is in turn controlled by the Democratic Alliance of Burma. The godfather of the Democratic Alliance of Burma happens to be the National Coalition of the Union of Burma … [which] is chaired by a Karen National Union (KNU) representative,” said Khin Yi, casting the widest possible net in his effort to implicate as many of the regime’s enemies as possible in a crime that remains, for all intents and purposes, unsolved.

If Phyo Wai Aung’s fate is anything like that of others who have been publicly accused by the regime of carrying out high-profile attacks, his future is grim, indeed. Although a court hearing was not held until July 14, his trial effectively ended  with Khin Yi’s press conference on May 6.

Phyo Wai Aung’s case is only the latest instance of summary justice in Burma, and hardly the most egregious. When a bomb killed two people at an oil refinery in Syriam (Thanlyin) on July 7, 1989, it prompted then Military Intelligence (MI) chief Brig-Gen Khin Nyunt (later to become full general and prime minister, until his ouster in October 2004) to hold a press conference that named 16 dissidents with connections to the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) as the perpetrators. The accused were tortured until they gave their MI interrogators the confession their boss needed to go public with his “findings.” A military tribunal sentenced four of the detained activists to death and the others to life imprisonment.

However, a few months after the Syriam bombing, which was followed by another blast three days later at Rangoon City Hall that killed three people and injured four others, MI arrested Ko Ko Naing, a KNU agent, who admitted to carrying out both attacks. But this did not help the detained NLD activists, most of whom were forced to serve out their sentences despite the fact that the MI knew they were innocent. Only after nearly two decades were some of the prisoners finally released. Meanwhile, Ko Ko Naing was freed in 2007 after serving less time than the NLD death row detainees, who remain behind bars to this day.

Polic investigate the site where bombs exploded during the New Year's festival in central Rangoon.(Photo: REUTERS)

“Because bomb blasts expose the weakness of the junta’s security apparatus, the regime’s first reaction is to round up and imprison anyone they can implicate, just to show that they are in control of the situation,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter to them if their prisoners are innocent, or if the people who really carried out the attack are still at large.”

While the regime seems content with locking up the usual suspects, however, it is clear that this does nothing to prevent future attacks—a threat that appears to be growing, along with the roster of possible perpetrators of violent acts targeting Burma’s urban areas.

Doubts about the case against Phyo Wai Aung don’t necessarily preclude the possibility that groups such as the ABSDF—or rather, radical elements loosely associated with the former student army—may have had a hand in the Thingyan attacks. Sources close to the ABSDF say that many active and inactive members based along Burma’s borders with Thailand and China remain committed to armed struggle against the Burmese regime, despite pressure from international donors to abandon the use of violence. Among them, the sources said, are some who are turning increasingly to urban warfare tactics in their efforts to overthrow the junta.

“Although the ideology of armed struggle has lost favor with many in the two decades since the ABSDF was formed, there remains a hardcore element that seeks to use any means available to undermine the junta’s grip on power,” said one source, adding that support for urban guerrilla tactics, including the use of explosives, has grown since the regime’s brutal crackdown on the 2007 demonstrations.

Because the ABSDF never officially renounced its right to oppose the regime by force, its health and education projects have faced funding problems stemming from the unwillingness of many aid agencies to finance the group. This has not, however, prevented more militant members from finding money to pay for training in making explosives and other areas of military expertise. Sources say that funding for such activities comes from private donors—mainly Burmese exiles based overseas—who have lost faith in the NLD’s nonviolent struggle to push Burma toward democracy.

But while disgruntled former student activists may have the means and motives to carry out sporadic bombing campaigns in major urban centers, they are hardly alone. Ethnic insurgent armies based along Burma’s borders have long regarded the country’s cities as legitimate targets. What makes the current situation particularly volatile is the growing restiveness of a host of ethnic cease-fire groups chafing under pressure to join the Burmese regime’s proposed border guard force (BGF) scheme, which would strip them of the quasi-autonomy they have enjoyed since they ended active hostilities.

Unlike the KNU and other groups that remain at war with the junta, the cease-fire armies have a significant presence in Burma’s major cities, including Rangoon, Mandalay, Moulmein and Lashio. Even if they were forced to withdraw to their bases along Burma’s borders in the event of a breakdown of their cease-fire agreements with the regime, they would still have intelligence networks in the cities. If the ethnic armies came under fire on their home turf, it would not be difficult for them to take the fight to their enemy.

“If the cease-fire agreement breaks down, this time the civil war will be fought not only in ethnic areas but also in towns and cities near the heart of the military command’s headquarters,” said a source from one ethnic cease-fire group, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Already, there is evidence that tensions in ethnic cease-fire areas are erupting in ways that could bode ill for stability in the rest of the country. On April 17, a series of bombs exploded at the project site of the Myitsone dam, near the Kachin State capital of Myitkyina. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a cease-fire group that is active in the area, denied responsibility for the blasts, which reportedly killed four people, but linked the attack to the BGF issue.

“If it were us, we would have done it to the Burma Army soldiers,” said a senior KIA officer quoted by the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News, adding that the blast “was likely their own handiwork and the blame was placed on us because we rejected [the Burmese regime’s] BGF program.”  

The idea that the regime itself is responsible for many of the attacks attributed to dissidents or insurgents is not a new one, and not entirely unfounded. Burma’s ruling generals are experts in psychological warfare and have a history of using trumped-up threats to stability as a pretext for imposing draconian laws. Many analysts say that with an election looming, the junta may use the  recent bombings as an excuse to introduce an anti-terrorism law that would further restrict the activities of opposition parties.

“Believe it or not, most people in Burma are saying that government agents are behind all of these incidents. They say that on the morning of April 15, the authorities told medical staff  at Rangoon’s public hospitals to be on standby,” said Naing Aung, the former chairman of the ABSDF and secretary-general of the Forum for Democracy in Burma.

Even if one dismisses such claims as conspiracy theories with little evidence to support them, there is good reason to believe that the regime has spawned its own breed of terrorists. When Khin Nyunt was forced to “retire” in 2004 and placed under house arrest, many of his subordinates received far worse treatment. A handful of ex-MI agents are believed to have escaped the purge, however, and are regarded by some as the likeliest suspects in a May 2005 bombing in Rangoon that left 19 people dead and 162 injured, in the bloodiest and most sophisticated terrorist attack to hit Burma in decades.

Border-based sources say that these rogue MI agents are still active and preparing for even deadlier acts of revenge. As they and other groups seek to exploit weaknesses in the regime’s armor, Burma’s cities risk becoming battlegrounds in an increasingly dirty war. But given the junta’s demonstrated disregard for innocent lives, it is hard to see what an escalation of violence against soft targets is likely to accomplish, apart from deepening the misery of Burma’s already hard-pressed population.