KMT General

KMT General's Mansion Blown Away By Khun Sa's Men

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11 March 1984 

A well known ex-Koumintang general's house in Chiangmai was destroyed by dynamite believed to be planted by druglord Khun Sa's sabotage team tonight. 

The detonation which occurred about 21:30 blew up Gen. Li Wenhuan's mansion in Tambon Faharm, Chiangmai, "destroying the structure and leaving a crater twenty feet wide and six feet deep." It also "damaged more than twenty houses and broke most windows within a mile . . .". 

Gen. Li however was unharmed. He was away in Bangkok at the time. 

Police later reported that three unidentified men, believed to be members of Khun Sa's Shanland United Army, left a "truck loaded with 7,000 sticks of dynamite . . in the driveway of General Li's Chiangmai mansion." The culprits were never caught. 

Khun Sa had been renewing his war against the ex-MTA since 1982. Major transport routes along the Thai-Burma border from Chiangrai to Maehongson, formerly dominated by the KMT, were reported to have come under the control of SUA. 

Khun Sa and the KMT fought in Laos in 1967. The event became known as "the 1967 Opium War." 

Credit: The Politics of Heroin, Alfred W.McCoy, 1991.