The leader of the Canada-based United Democratic Party of Myanmar (UDP), Kyaw Myint, also known as Michael Hua Hu, is threatening legal action against The Irrawaddy and its editor, Aung Zaw, according to an interview carried by the Burmese service of the Voice of America (VOA) on Wednesday.
Kyaw Myint, who also goes by the name of Michael Hua Kyaw Myint Hu, told VOA that the basis of his legal action was an article published in The Irrawaddy on December 26, 2008. The article quoted a report in the now defunct magazine Asiaweek accusing a company run by Kyaw Myint of laundering money for the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which is heavily involved in the drug trade.
 |
| Kyaw Myint, also known as Michael Hua Hu |
The company, Kyone Yeom, was chaired by Kyaw Myint in the 1990s.
Kyaw Myint told VOA he was never involved in laundering drug money. “I am preparing documents for a lawsuit,” he said. The action would be lodged in a court in Thailand.
The Irrawaddy article also quoted a report that appeared in Jane’s Intelligence Review in November 1998 saying Kyone Yeom had been blacklisted by the Burmese regime because Kyaw Myint, who claimed to be a deputy minister of finance for the UWSA, openly and brazenly flouted Burmese business laws and regulations.
Jane’s Intelligence Review had reported in March 1998 that on December 11, 1997, an article in the state-run vernacular press announced the black-listing of Kyone Yeom by the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development for “submitting false accounts.”
The Jane’s report added: “However, following meetings between Wa leaders and junta chief Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, the minister responsible, technocrat Brigadier General David Abel was abruptly shunted to an inactive post.”
At the time, Kyaw Myint was under surveillance by US agencies. A US State Department “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998" said that in February 1998, the Burmese regime effectively suspended the Kyone Yeom for violating the Myanmar [Burma] Company Act, although the government did not indicate that this was a counternarcotics action.
“The company's chairman, a former high-level United Wa State Army officer, was reportedly later sentenced to 9 years imprisonment,” the report said.
Kyaw Myint told VOA that he was arrested for political reasons and charged under State Emergency Act 5-J. He later escaped from prison and travelled first to the US and then Canada, reportedly with the help of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese military analyst and former member of the Burma Communist Party, said that Kyaw Mint “wasn’t prominent before the Wa separated from the Communist Party in 1989. After the Wa’s ceasefire with the junta, he became well-known for doing business for the Wa.”
Related stories:
UDP Leader Involved in Drugs, Money Laundering, Says Ex-agent
http://www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=15174
Canada-based Party Linked to Controversial Businessman
http://www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=14852
E-MAIL
PRINT
COMMENTS (7)
