Two Bombs Explode in Rangoon; One in Border Town

By WAI MOE

Two bomb explosions rocked Rangoon on Saturday and Sunday, killing one man, and a bomb exploded at a police station in Tachileik in northern Burma on Saturday.

On Sunday evening, one man was killed when a bomb exploded in his home in Shwepyithar Township, a suburb northwest of Rangoon. A second person in the house escaped injury.

A state-run-newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, reported on Monday that the first bomb went off at a roadside garden near the intersection of Baukhtaw Railway Station Street and Moekaung Street in Yankin Township on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. No one was injured.

A second bomb was found nearby, and it was defused by authorities. Residents in the area said the blast occurred near a military documentation office.

Meanwhile, a bomb went off at a police station in Tachilek Township on the Thai-Burmese border on early Saturday. An officer at the police station said the explosion occurred about 2:50 a.m. No one was injured.

“A Wa detainee who is being held under a drug charge is suspected in the explosion, and a policeman in the township is being questioned in connection with the bombing,” said the officer.

The bombings in Rangoon were the sixth and seventh bomb explosions this year. A bomb exploded at a ticket booth at the main railway station in Rangoon in January, injuring two women. In April, two bomb blasts occurred in downtown Rangoon, but no one wounded.

A bomb exploded in July at an office of the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association.

In mid September, a bomb went off at the Tamwe Township police station. Another bombing occurred near Rangoon’s city hall and police found another explosive device nearby.

On October 13, seven people on a passenger-carrying truck were killed by an explosion. At the time, a police officer in Rangoon said it could have been caused by a compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinder on the truck.

The junta arrested Myint Aye, a leading activist with Human Rights Defenders and Promoters, and accused him in the July bomb blast.

At a press conference in Naypyidaw on September 7, Brig-Gen Khin Yi, Burma’s police chief, accused Myint Aye of providing explosives and financing in the July bombing.

The military authorities sometimes accuse pro-democracy activists of organizing bombings. Before his arrest, Myint Aye and several colleagues had collected data on force labor in the country and provided information to the International Labor Organization.