The mother-in-law of an armed Karen cease-fire group leader in Three Pagodas Pass has been released after a being kidnapped on Saturday. The leader’s wife is also unharmed after armed assailants fired on her as she escaped an earlier attempted kidnapping.
At 5 pm on January 3rd, a group of men driving a blue truck pulled up in front of the home of Lieutenant Colonel Lay Wa, second-in-command of the Karen Peace Front (KPF). According to eyewitnesses, two men wearing black masks pointed handguns at Lay Wa’s wife, Ma Moe Thu, 25, as she stood outside and then put her in handcuffs.
“She escaped when they tried to throw her into the truck,” one of the witnesses explained to IMNA. “She kicked with her leg and ran away. The gunmen shot at her and missed.” According to this witness, the gunmen fired one shot directly at Ma Moe Thu and then fired twice into the air. Sources in local military intelligence provided a slightly different account, and said the two men fired five shots. According to a police source in Three Pagodas Pass, the handcuffs on Ma Moe Thu’s wrists had to be unlocked by police.
Later the same day, at 11 pm, Lay Wa’s mother-in-law, Daw Nann, 50, was successfully seized from the gambling venue she was operating inside a pagoda festival near the entrance to Three Pagodas Pass. She was released two days later, on the evening of January 6th.
According to a source close to the KPF, the Lay Wa family paid a significant sum of money for Daw Nann’s release. IMNA could not confirm details of her release, though she appears to be in good health. “I went to her home to see her and she was well,” said another source who visited the Lay Wa home upon Daw Nann’s return. She and the family denied the she had been kidnapped at all, the source added.
Rumors explaining the kidnappings – attempted and successful – are flying fast and thick in Three Pagodas. A consistent theme runs through the explanations, however, and the consensus is that the kidnappings were motivated by economics rather than politics. The majority of IMNA sources contend that the kidnappings are related to narcotics trafficking, and allege that Lay Wa’s family was targeted in an attempt to recoup a debt that he was refusing to pay.
Lay Wa and his family are of some infamy in Three Pagodas Town, and are widely regarded as large-scale narcotics traffickers. According to a report released by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), in December 2008 an agent for Lay Wa offered to sell large quantities of raw opium to a HURFOM field reporter.
The KPF, lead by Colonel Thuh Muh Heh, split from the Karen National Union in 1997 and has subsequently remained loosely allied with Burma’s military government. The group operates a number of road and river checkpoints in the Three Pagodas Pass area, and maintains a semi-administrative presence in the town – chiefly in the form of taxation on the town’s lucrative gambling operations. KPF members also operate at least three massage parlors, the largest of which is owned by Lay Wa.
