Khun Sa go

Khun Sa go-between passes away

General / Thai-Burma Relations

Gen Kriangsak Chamanand, 86, Thailand's former supreme commander and prime minister, who had negotiated for the release of warlord Khun Sa in 1974 passed away yesterday. 

He was known as one of the few Thai leaders who had befriended the resistance groups from Burma. 

On 16 April 1973, more than three years after Khun Sa, then a militia chief, was arrested, Zhang Suquan a.k.a Falang, his chief of staff, abducted two Russian doctors working in Taunggyi and demanded the freedom of Khun Sa in exchange for the two. 

Bo Yang, an acclaimed Chinese author, writes in his widely-read Golden Triangle: Frontier and Wildness (1987): 

(T)he affair ... attracted international notice. (B)oth the Soviet Union and Burma (were) sharply criticized and the (Shanland United Army) seized the opportunity of requesting through well-known channels, mediation by the government of Thailand. It was an excellent means of getting themselves off the hook. The Thai general Kriangsak Chomanand flew in person to Ban Hin Taek by helicopter and conducted the two plump, well-fed hostages back to Bangkok, where they were taken to the Soviet embassy. The government of Burma was then pressed to take reciprocal action. There followed another six month delay until the Burmese government felt it could release Khun Sa without losing face, although it did specify that he must continue to reside in Rangoon and report his whereabouts every month to the Rangoon CID.

Khun Sa was freed on 7 September 1974. On 7 February 1976, he made his escape and reunited with his men. Ironically, he chose to return to his erstwhile captors and receive their custodianship, following mutiny by his men in 1995. 

The general was also credited for standing up to vouch for remnant Kuomintang officers and men and thus averting the call for their expulsion from the kingdom.