For the second time the US embassy in Rangoon, in the former capital of Burma, has denied US entry visa to Rev. Dr. Lahtaw Saboi Jum, former general secretary of the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC), the country's well-known peace mediator and his family. This was disclosed by a local source close to him. His dubious connections with the ruling junta and its business cronies came in the way, sources added.
The first visa application by Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum along with his wife and a girl of the family to the US embassy was denied. A special request for US visas on October 21 for the second time was also rejected by the US embassy, said sources close to Rev. Saboi Jum's family.
A Baptist pastor Rev. Saboi Jum and his family planned to attend the '2008 Summit' on Christian religion organized by US-based Bild International from October 29 to November 8, 2008 in Ames in Iowa state in United States of America. They also intended to attend an American friend's wedding.
According to KBC pastors in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state in northern Burma, the reasons for refusing US visas to Rev. Saboi Jum and his family had to do with private business links between Rev. Saboi Jum with his young brother Lahtaw Hkun Myat and a popular Burmese tycoon Tay Za, who is close to Burmese military junta supremo Senior General Than and Gen. Thura Shwe Mann.
Tay Za, or Teza, the owner of Htoo Trading Company, controls major economic sectors of the country such as logging, tourism, hotels, air transport and construction to technological investment in the junta's newly built Yadanabon Cyber City in Upper Burma.
Tay Za-owned Air Bagan, recently stopped airline services in the country. Rev. Saboi Jum and his brother have shares in the company, said sources close to them.
As mediators, Rev. Saboi Jum and his brother Hkun Myat helped reach the ceasefire agreement between the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the junta in 1994. Hkun Myat was sent as the most trusted peace mediator to former Burmese Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt (before the latter was purged in October 2004), to broker peace between the non-ethnic ceasefire groups like Karen National Union (KNU) and the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) on the Thai-Burma border.
Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum founded a Church-based national NGO called Shalom Foundation in 2001 and he is also in the seven-member advisory board of the country-based Metta Development Foundation.
Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum was alleged to have flourished in his private business with help from unknown people and financial aid from Roman Catholic Churches in European countries meant for Roman Catholic Churches in Kachin State channeled through him, according to Kachin Baptist and Roman Catholic Churches.
Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum had once owned a high class hotel known as Sumpra Hotel in Shatapru Quarter in Myitkyina. However he later sold it to a Chinese businessman, said Kachin Church sources in Myitkyina.
