Khun Sa death buzz raises flap

General

Khun Sa death buzz raises flap

Media and intelligence circles in Thailand were rocked yesterday by reports of the death of ex-warlord Khun Sa, causing a furor, according to one Thai intelligence officer, more intense than the death reports of ex-dictator Gen Ne Win which occurred almost once a year until his actual passing in December 2002.

A close friend of Khun Sa, who surrendered himself to Rangoon in 1996 and has been under close protection by the military intelligence service outside the capital since, assured S.H.A.N. she had just met Khun Sa's 12-year old daughter who returned to the border from Rangoon two weeks earlier. "She told me her father was in good health", she said.

Other sources, including his nephew and delegates to the National Convention, also assured S.H.A.N. Khun Sa's health had been the best since he suffered a stroke in the late 1990s.

S.H.A.N. afterwards retraced the source of the report, a friend of the Karen National Union's Gen Bo Mya and family. "Well, we heard he was hospitalized 5-months earlier," he said in reply to S.H.A.N.'s query. "Since then, we haven't heard anything about him. So..."

The source intentionally left his sentenced unfinished. He later admitted he was not in a position to confirm whether or not Khun Sa had died.

Khun Sa a.k.a Chang Chifu, wanted both by Thailand and the United States on drug charges, was born in Tangyan on 17 February 1934. He became a government sponsored militia leader in 1960. Seven years later he fought an opium war with the Kuomintang at the triangular area where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, an event that brought the romantic moniker "Golden Triangle" into a household word.

He was arrested in 1969 and his forces went underground. Their kidnapping of two Russian doctors in 1973 secured his release. He finally surrendered on 7 January 1996 following a mutiny which broke the backbone of his army.

Note:
All names except for Khun Sa are withheld by request.