Mizzima interviews former treasurer Zaw Tun of the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB), who has publicly accused Maung Maung, the general,-secretary of the National Council of Union of Burma (NCUB), a pro-democracy alliance group in exile, of returning to Burma on three separate occasions in 2008 on trips which he tried to keep secret.
Question: Maung Maung held a press conference on Sunday in which he denied your accusation that he travelled to Burma three times. Do you have any comment on his statement?
Answer: I have no comment on it because the NCUB has already formed an inquiry commission, and I’ll talk to this commission.
Q: Has this inquiry commission questioned you in this case?
A: Not yet, but they have a plan to question me. The chairman of an organization of one of the inquiry commission members died so they have to wait until all the commission members can sit together, and then they will question me.
Q: Maung Maung said that this was a malicious attack on him?
A: I have no grudge or malice against him. I joined the FTUB at its inception. But I hate oppression and I fight against this regime. I always said we must correct ourselves whenever there are irregularities in our organization. This is not the first time I have complained. In early 2000, I said there were misappropriation and misuse of funds in our organization. If we fight for democracy, our organization must have internal democracy first.
Q: You have a document issued by an Thai airline that you say shows he traveled to Burma? Do you have any other documents to support that charge?
A: No, I don’t have. I have only a document of an airline statement issued by Thai Airway International.
Q: Maung Maung explained all of these accusations with evidence issued by the Thai Immigration Office. Then he claimed that your airline statement is incorrect. What do you say about his claims?
A: If he said the airline statement is incorrect. They can verify the authenticity of the statement. I don’t want to give any more comments in this regard. They can come and verify the document in my hand. They can verify the authenticity of the Thai Airway statement. I can’t say anymore.
Q: When did you get this frequent flyer statement that names Maung Maung?
A: I forgot the exact date. I received this statement at our office not long after the issuance, maybe just one or one and half month from the issue date. This is a guess. I forgot the exact date.
Q: Maung Maung said that you exposed this case only in December 2010. This airline frequent flyer statement was issued in 2008. In the meantime, did you show this statement to anyone else in your organisation?
A: Yes, I showed it to Than Lwin. I informed him about this statement in 2009.
Q: What did he say to you?
A: Than Lwin said that he would inquire about it. That’s all. He said that he would verify the document.
Q: Can you prove the counter allegations made against you that you could have doctored this airline statement? Can you say this is the authentic Thai Airway frequent flyer statement issued by the airline?
A: This was not issued to me. They sent this statement by post and I saw it at our office. They send such a statement to their customers regularly, maybe quarterly or half yearly. They mention the miles the customer flew in a certain period. This statement was not issued to me. It was sent to him.
Q: What will happen to you if Maung Maung sues you upon completion of the inquiry?
A: I must face trial if he sues me, but I won’t appear before a Thai court if he sues me in Thai Court. In democratic countries, you must present a case to court if you want to file suit. The court will decide if this case can proceed further. If the court accepts the case, I must face it. This is my responsibility. He can sue me in Australia too. No problem for me.
Q: Does the current situation have any impact on the exiled political movement?
A: I don’t think so. There will be no impact if our work is right, our path is right, our programme is right and our tactic is right. Moreover, this case can make our organizations more systematic and more efficient and this will a benefit to our revolution.
Q: Do you have any more to say?
A: I want to clarify two points. I have tried to correct the unhealthy trends in our organisation since early 2000. I said that clearly in my letter about Maung Maung’s visits to Burma. I did not accuse him. In my letter, I just said to inquire about the visits.
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New Delhi (Mizzima) – The National Council of Union of Burma (NCUB) will conduct an inquiry into Maung Maung’s alleged trips to Burma, which he has denied. Mizzima reporter Myo Thein interviewed Maung Maung on the allegations.
Question: You held a press conference in which you denied traveling to Burma.
Answer: I held this press conference to convince both the public and the alliance organizations that all these allegations of my visits to Burma are incorrect. I have never returned to Burma.
Q: In your statement, you said that the allegations made against you were made by some malicious persons. Do you have any problems with Zaw Tun?
A: Zaw Tun joined the FTUB around 1992 when he was young. First, he formed the Seafarers Union and successfully made it a member organization of the International Seamen’s Union. I trained him to achieve these things. Moreover, I sent recommendations to the Australian embassy to get him a scholarship and admission to an Australian University. But I also had to give him warnings about his work. We had some differences and trouble when I gave him warnings about his way of dealing with other people in our organization. But none of that was personal.
I trained him, and I nurtured him, but he developed bad feelings and resentments against me. I warned him to act in accordance with the rules especially during the time of a Congress meeting of our organization, and we then had some differences between us. I had to take action against him to avoid impact on our activities and on other people in our organization.
Q: What is the nature of the inquiry commission that will investigate this matter?
A: The NCUB during a meeting on March 19-20 formed an inquiry commission. It does not mention any word regarding ‘investigation’. Another point is that I holding a key political post in the alliance group. So they cannot ignore these allegations and at the same time they can’t just focus only on allegations made by other persons. So they formed the commission to protect my reputation and the reputation of the organization. The mission of this commission is to submit their report to the board of the presidium.
Q: Has the commission asked you to submit your travel documents for verification?
A: Yes, they have. This is the main issue. They came and asked me if I travelled to Burma. The mileage statement was issued in the name of Maung Maung but Thai Airway told us that they had 21 frequent flyers of the same name so that they could have made an error in generating the statement. Then I requested them to verify by checking against my date of birth. But they replied that I must send them a written request as this statement was issued more than three years ago. Then I submitted my written request to the airway. I submitted all of this to the inquiry commission.
I went back to the airline office on the appointed date of April 1 in the presence of a US Labour Union director. As I said, they asked for my travel document and checked the date of birth mentioned and another number that is called an ‘A’ number. It is a unique number, and it could not be altered. And when verifying the mileage statement against these numbers, the tickets going to Burma, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and India were found incorrect. The date of birth on these tickets was different. So they reissued my statement by correcting all the mistakes.
Q: So you can prove you didn’t go to Burma three times now?
A: Even more, the exit and entry of a country is supervised by Immigration. When I requested Immigration Department information, they issued a letter which states that there were no trips made by me to any country including Burma on these alleged dates of travel.
Moreover, I have an alibi on these alleged dates. For instance, I was attending a Strategy Coordination Meeting on the 25th, 26th and 27th of February 2008 with over 30 of my colleagues. They accused me of traveling to Burma on February 28, 2008. I have meeting minute notes documents and photo evidence of this meeting. We issued a statement for this meeting on the next day, February 28. On that date, I, Salai Lian Hmung and I think Khin Ohnmar were at a function releasing the statement and we answered questions. I can prove this. The next alleged date of traveling to Burma via Kuala Lumpur is March 9. On this date, too, I was at a presidium meeting of the NCUB attended by all member organizations. I have the meeting minute notes of my presentation at this meeting.
So I have a Thai Airway statement (corrected), a Thai Immigration Department statement and my records of political meetings proving I never went to Burma.
Q: Have you received any offers from the Burmese government to travel to Burma to meet with them?
A: No, no one made such an offer to me.
Q: The publicity surrounded the issue of your travel has given some critics an opportunity to criticise you and your organization. What do you say to them?
A: Personally, I was outraged. I am very bitter. I have fought the SPDC (Burmese regime) without any compromise. I fought them in the past, fight them now, and will fight them in the future. I fought them alone. Now I’m fighting them with this organization, the FTUB. I shall continue my fight against this regime until the slogans of multi-party government and federal union that I have chanted since 1988 are fulfilled.
I see this attack against our alliance movement as an act of an enemy. So I am outraged. I will treat an enemy as an enemy. I was treated as an enemy, and I shall retaliate in the same manner. At the time of taking charge and working on behalf of an alliance group, I might have made mistakes. These mistakes can be discussed frankly. But I can’t accept such surreptitious attacks.
Q: Do you think this will have any direct impact on the pro-democracy and the alliance movement?
A: It is a tragic and sad matter. They strongly attacked the NCUB and the leaders of the NCUB while we were collecting facts, and we were not yet ready to explain all these allegations. And also they attack the inquiry commission constituted by the NCUB. The members of this commission are not ordinary people from their mother organizations. They sacrificed much in the movement, and they are elected representatives of their organizations. I cannot tolerate insulting these leaders. I feel sorry for them too.
There should be no negative impact on us because we didn’t do anything wrong. We have a resolute stance on the regime’s roadmap to democracy and their Parliament. So this matter will not have much impact on our political work. But it will be very difficult to forgive them for this act of attacking me personally and our organization.
