Man Killed in Blast Was Bomb Maker: Junta

LAWI WENG

Burmese state-run media reported on Tuesday that a man who died in a blast in Rangoon on Sunday was a former monk and anti-junta activist who was making a bomb which exploded prematurely and killed him.

The dead man was named as Thet Oo Win. According to the New Light of Myanmar daily, he fled illegally across the border to Thailand last year after anti-junta protests had been violently suppressed by Burmese security forces in September 2007. The state-run newspaper alleged that Thet Oo Win returned to Burma 10 days ago and was also a suspect in the bus stop bombing in downtown Rangoon last month, which injured seven people.

The New Light of Myanmar said materials found at Thet Oo Win’s house matched those used in the bus stop bombing. It said the authorities seized wires, batteries and detonators from the house.

The report said that Thet Oo Win had once been a Buddhist monk, but later became a heavy drinker. The blast reportedly occurred while he was trying to build a bomb at a house in northern Rangoon.

This was the fourth bomb blast in a month in Burma. The military junta has in the past blamed explosions on armed exiled groups or ethnic rebels that have been battling the military rulers for decades. However, recently the regime has also started pointing the finger at pro-democracy activists.

State-run media in September accused two members of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) of bombing pro-government offices in July.