Burma junta blames ethnic rebels for blasts
The New Light of Burma newspaper, a junta mouthpiece, said the separate blasts occurred in Kyaukkyi town in central Bago Division early on Tuesday morning, causing minor damage to property but no injuries.
The newspaper blamed the Karen National Union (KNU), a Christian-led rebel group that has been fighting for autonomy for more than five decades.
“It was learnt that the perpetrations were the acts of a group of KNU Brigade-3,” the English-language article said.
In December the junta also blamed the group for a blast in the eastern state of Karen which killed eight people and wounded 13 others.
“Such incidents have proved that KNU insurgents are detonating bombs, blowing up power lines, planting mines in farms and gardens and extorting money, rice and rations from villages and towns,” Wednesday’s report said.
“It is learnt that as the terrorist insurgents in disguise are penetrating regions where peace and stability prevail, the local people are cooperating with the authorities in exposing them,” it added.
The regime has stepped up its decades-long campaign against minority groups, with offensives against ethnic Chinese Kokang rebels in the northeast in August and the Christian Karen insurgents in June.
On Sunday, aid groups said an army crackdown in the eastern region had forced 2,000 ethnic Karen villagers to flee into the jungle.
Civil war has wracked the country since independence in 1948, and while most rebel groups have reached ceasefire deals with the junta, analysts say the army is determined to crush the rest before national elections promised this year.
Burma, which has been ruled by the military since 1962, has co-opted some previously hostile rebel groups to become junta-backed border forces that have taken on their former brothers-in-arms.
