Burma opposition offered guns by IslamistsDaniel Pedersen in Mae Sot, Thailand

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24374934-401,00.html

September 20, 2008 03:18am

ISLAMIC fundamentalists have offered weapons to Burma's opposition groups with which to fight the ruling military junta.

And the resistance groups - which feel they have been left high and dry by the international community - are seriously considering the offer.

Former students, who were forced to flee Rangoon after pro-democracy protests in 1988 were violently put down, are said to be discussing the offer in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.


They know accepting arms from a group linked to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could polarise the West against them and damage their revolution.

But there are no other offers of weapons to fight the military regime, which is officially known as the State Peace Development Council.

Members of the resistance inside Burma want guns and don't care where they come from.

They have decided fighting is the only way to freedom and are compiling an arms shopping list.

The prospect of a holy war developing in Burma is likely to be greeted with trepidation by neighbouring states including China, which is one of the military junta's prime supporters.

Thailand already has a grinding Muslim insurgency in its deep south, fed by militant Islamists operating out of northern Malaysia.

Meanwhile, the Karen National Liberation Army, which has waged a war of independence in Burma since 1949, has expressed dismay at the offer of guns from religious zealots.

"We are fighting an honourable war to free our people from oppression and want absolutely nothing to do with terrorists," says the KNLA's Colonel Nerdah Mya. "We don't do deals with the devil."