EXILED BURMESE LABOR LEADER RETURNS TO THAILAND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGKOK 007015

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FOR EAP/MLS, DRL/PHD, DRL/IL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2015
TAGS: PHUM PREF PGOV PREL ELAB TH BM
SUBJECT: EXILED BURMESE LABOR LEADER RETURNS TO THAILAND
DESPITE APPARENT THREAT

Classified By: Economic Counselor Michael Delaney for Reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary: In the past week, the Embassy has been
sorting out an unusual story involving U Maung Maung, the
exiled Burmese trade union leader, and his return to Thailand
on November 3 despite an apparent warning by Thai officials
that he would not be allowed to re-enter the country. Maung
Maung, the son of NLD senior official U Nyunt Wei, has been
labeled a "terrorist" by the Burmese government, which has
blamed him for a May 7 series of bombings in Rangoon. He was
returning to Thailand from the U.S. after a trip to Poland.
While he was in transit to Tokyo, his colleagues were
strongly urged by a Thai consular official in Washington to
dissuade him from returning to Thailand. While Maung Maung
extended his stopover in Tokyo to consider his options, his
colleagues in Thailand were informed by their Thai contacts
of a threat to Maung Maung's life - presumably originating
from the Burmese government. The Thai MFA confirmed to
Embassy that threat information had been received and that
Maung Maung would be denied entrance into Thailand despite
possessing a valid visa. The MFA would not explain the
reasoning for this action. Nonetheless, Maung Maung
re-entered Thailand on November 3 through Chiang Mai airport,
apparently assisted by unnamed Thai officials acting without
the MFA's knowledge. Maung Maung later told Embassy that he
intends to remain in Thailand, although he expects the rest
of the RTG to soon discover his presence here. End Summary.



2. (C) The exiled Burmese opposition leader U Maung Maung
returned to Thailand from the U.S. on November 3 despite an
unusual warning from the Thai Embassy in Washington that he
would be prevented from entering the country. Maung Maung is
Secretary General of both the Federation of Trade Unions of

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Burma (FTUB) and the National Council of the Union of Burma
(NCUB). He is also the son of U Nyunt Wei, a senior leader
and adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma's opposition
National League of Democracy (NLD) party. FTUB officials in
Bangkok first contacted the U.S. Embassy on October 31,
saying that Maung Maung was already in transit from the U.S.
to Bangkok, via Tokyo, when a Thai consular officer warned
FTUB members in the U.S. that Maung Maung would be denied
entrance to Thailand despite holding a valid Thai visa in his
U.S.-issued refugee travel document. When informed by the
FTUB that Maung Maung was already en route to Thailand, the
Thai diplomat requested Maung Maung's flight information,
which the FTUB refused to provide. FTUB members in Bangkok
then asked the U.S. Embassy to assist them in communicating
with Maung Maung during his stopover in Tokyo to urge him to
return to the U.S. Laboff passed the message to Maung Maung
through United Airlines staff, which managed to reach him due
to a flight delay which forced him to stay overnight in a
Tokyo hotel. Maung Maung then chose to remain in Japan while
his re-entry to Thailand remained uncertain.


3. (C) On November 1, FTUB members told Laboff that unnamed
members of Thailand's National Security Council (NSC) warned
them that the RTG had intercepted communications indicating
that a person of Burmese origin had been sent to Thailand to
assassinate Maung Maung. The FTUB members described their
sources as long-time NSC members sympathetic to the Burmese
opposition. The NSC members provided the FTUB with the name
and general location (the Chiang Mai area) of the Burmese
person they were seeking. The FTUB noted that Maung Maung
has received similar threats in the past, but never with such
specific details. They also noted that the RTG government
had, to this point, allowed Maung Maung to operate freely in
Thailand since his expulsion from Burma in 1989, and had
never before tried to prevent his return to Thailand during
his periodic travels abroad. (Maung Maung's travel in this
instance was to visit Poland in August to attend the 25th
anniversary of the Solidarity movement. He then traveled to
the U.S. for a multi-week stay, and to renew his Thai visa,
before his planned return to Thailand.)


4. (C) After receiving this information from the FTUB,
Emboffs verified that Maung Maung had a U.S.-issued refugee
travel document which would allow him to return to the U.S.
if he were prevented from entering Thailand. Laboff also
contacted Thai MFA officials to determine Maung Maung's visa
status and to inquire about any RTG intentions to prohibit
his return. The MFA's North America Division political desk
officer did not immediately know of any effort to refuse
entry to Maung Maung, but advised that Burmese Prime Minister
Soe Win was then in Thailand attending a regional economic
forum. The desk officer surmised that Maung Maung may have
been prohibited from returning to Thailand during PM Soe
Win's visit, and pledged to seek a fuller explanation for the
Embassy.


5. (C) On November 4, the MFA desk officer called Laboff to
report that Maung Maung indeed had been informally warned by
Thai consular officials not to return to Thailand, although
his visa technically remained valid. When asked for the
reason behind the warning, the desk officer said it involved
intelligence information related to a threat to Maung Maung's
safety. The desk officer said he could not provide further
details, but noted that it was well known that the Burmese
government on August 28 had publicly named Maung Maung as the
"mastermind" of the deadly series of bombings in Rangoon on
May 7. The desk officer said he also knew that the FTUB had
various "friends" in the RTG that had already warned them of
a threat to Maung Maung's life. Asked if Maung Maung would
be allowed into the country if he arrived at Bangkok's
airport with a valid visa, the desk officer replied, "No, he
will be detained." He said he could not answer further
questions about the reasons for, or duration of, such a
detention. He declined to speak further on the issue.


6. (C) Shortly thereafter, Laboff received a call from the
FTUB advising that Maung Maung had already arrived in
Thailand and wanted to meet to discuss his situation. In a
meeting arranged in a hotel close to the Embassy, Maung Maung
appeared with a colleague from the FTUB and an American
advisor, John Osolink, Jr. (Osolink previously headed the
Bangkok office of the Asian American Free Labor Institute,
now known as the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Osolink has been
accused in the official Myanmar press of promoting Maung
Maung's rise as a labor leader with FTUB.) Maung Maung told
Laboff that he had arrived in Thailand earlier that day with
assistance from "friendly" NSC officials, who arranged for
him to fly from Tokyo to Chiang Mai instead of Bangkok, later
transporting him to Bangkok on a domestic flight. Maung
Maung said he intended to remain in Bangkok for a few days
before traveling to Mae Sot, Tak province, along the Burmese
border. Maung Maung said the NSC officials had no further
information on the alleged threat to his life. He said he
expected the rest of the government, including the MFA, to
eventually learn of his presence in Thailand through flight
records, but that his NSC contacts were confident he would
not be detained now that his legal arrival was a 'fait
accompli'. He requested that his presence in Thailand be
kept quiet for now, however, "to avoid angering the Thai
authorities." He added that the NSC officials were seeking
to learn how the Thai Embassy in Washington had been
instructed to warn against his travel. They had already
determined that there was no official directive in the MFA's
cable traffic, and that Maung Maung had not been added to any
immigration watch list.


7. (C) Comment: We were initially skeptical of the
sensational aspects of the FTUB account, but the MFA's
confirmation of key points - namely, the alleged threat and
efforts to bar Maung Maung's entry - gave us pause. The
Burmese government has indeed ratcheted up its rhetoric on
Maung Maung since the Rangoon bomb blasts in May. Two
American labor consultants, who consecutively succeeded
Osolink as head of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center in Bangkok,
lend credence to the FTUB's information. One is a former
Congressional HIRC staffer who has lived in Thailand and
known Maung Maung for eight years. "We know Maung Maung has
excellent access to members of the NSC," he said. "Those
members," he added, "are trying to counter others, led by
Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit, who are closer to the Burmese
government, and it is not surprising that one faction doesn't
know what the other is doing - the MFA being the last to find
out."
BOYCE