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More shocking, perhaps, is the fact that fellow Karen leaders have also made attempts on his life. In his book, Bo Mya describes how the well-known Karen rebel Bo Lin Htin, under orders from a corrupt superior officer named Taw Meh Pah, attempted to kill him. Bo Lin Htin, who earned notoriety in 1960 when he briefly seized control of the Thai border town of Mae Sot over a dispute with his Thai arms dealers, invited Bo Mya to his place for a drink. As it became dark, Bo Lin Htin lit a candle, and then suddenly extinguished the flame by shooting at it with a revolver. He then invited Bo Mya to shoot him. Bo Mya declined the offer, but became increasingly wary of this erratic behavior. When Bo Lin Htin said, "If you don’t shoot me, I will shoot you," Bo Mya tried to grab the weapon from him, and the two men began to struggle for control of the gun. Knocking over a lamp, they scuffled in complete darkness. Finally, Bo Mya, who had his finger on the gun’s trigger, fired off all its shots. Bo Lin Htin fled, and after a brief pursuit, Bo Mya also ran away, narrowly escaping from Bo Lin Htin’s men. Bo Mya portrays himself as a man who has never shied away from conflict or confrontation when his principles were at stake. As a staunch anti-communist, he long enjoyed the backing of both Thailand and the United States. But he also occasionally found himself on a collision course with fellow Karens who were influenced by communist ideology. To demonstrate just how strongly he felt about this matter, he describes an incident in which he asked a respected Karen leader point blank if he was a communist. The leader was Mahn Ba Zan, who at the time controlled one of two major rival Karen factions. Bo Mya was blunt with him: "Moo Hso Kaw Kasa [Mahn Ba Zan’s rival] told me you are communist. If you are communist, I will not follow you. However, if you are not a communist, I will go along with you," he declared. Bo Mya was pleased with Mahn Ba Zan’s answer: "Oh, Moo Hso Kaw Kasa purposely says things to discredit me. I am not a communist, I always say my prayers." In another incident not recorded in the book, Bo Mya detained student leader Moe Thee Zun in the early 1990s because he was known as a "leftist". Moe Thee Zun and several leading members of his faction who were arrested along with him were released only after the BBC’s Burmese-language service reported the incident. Bo Mya’s ire was not reserved for those who espoused ideologies he did not like. He has also taken strong action against Karen rivals and troops accused of committing atrocities against both Karen and Burman civilians, including such crimes as robbery, extortion, murder, rape and kidnapping. In one particular case, Bo Mya ordered the execution of some Karen soldiers whom he accused of banditry and gang-raping local women. He ordered these "evil men" to come for a "meeting", where they were promptly arrested. Bo Mya wrote: "Because those people are guilty of their crimes … we gave them capital punishment…. We must never do evil things, we must punish them." To demonstrate how strongly he felt about this issue, Bo Mya bayoneted one of the offending Karen soldiers as an example. A photograph of this gruesome execution is still used by the Burmese government whenever it wants to discredit Bo Mya and the KNU. The Fall of Manerplaw The nadir of Bo Mya’s years as the Karen leader came in 1995, when the KNU lost its fortified headquarters at Manerplaw to the Burmese. While Bo Mya blamed younger Karen leaders for sowing the disunity that led to this decisive loss, many observers believe that he himself was largely responsible for creating division among the Karen. As a firm believer in the Christian faith, Bo Mya was often accused of discriminating against Karen Buddhists. The Burmese junta happily exploited this growing dissatisfaction to its advantage. In particular, it is believed to have used a Buddhist monk known as Myaing Gyi Ngu Sayadaw to divide the Karen. The role of the Karen Buddhists in enabling the Burmese to overrun Manerplaw was confirmed in 1996, when Bo Mya personally met two high-ranking Burmese military intelligence officers who admitted that without the help of disgruntled Buddhists, they would never have reached Manerplaw. Rather than admit to any personal responsibility for this situation, however, Bo Mya blames younger leaders, including Gen Shwe Hseng and Padoh Mahn Sha—both currently serving as top-ranking KNU officials—for weakening Karen unity in a bid to take power from the aging KNU leadership. "It was due to the disobedience of the Central Committee members that Manerplaw has to fall into the hands of enemy," he writes in his memoirs. Bo Mya finally lost his preeminent position among the Karen rebel leadership in 2000, when the KNU held a congress at its jungle hideout. Saw Ba Thin Sein took over the chairman position, while Bo Mya was re-elected as vice president of the KNU.