Myanmar Scolds Thailand

Thai authorities sent the wrong message to terrorists and criminals by freeing the militants who seized Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok, the government of Myanmar said Monday.

The 26-hour embassy siege ended peacefully Saturday after Thai officials agreed to fly the five student rebels to the border with Myanmar after they released 38 hostages. No one was seriously hurt.

The students had sought to publicize the fight for democracy in Myanmar, also called Burma, which is under military rule.

In a statement to foreign news agencies, the Myanmar government said it was relieved by the end of the siege. It described the militants who staged it as "a group of life-threatening, heavily armed and trigger-happy men."

The government expressed concern about the future safety of its diplomats and diplomatic missions, saying the incident set "a negative precedent."

"Upon the pretext of the precedent, other radical or even non-radical groups may get the wrong message that these kinds of terrorist and criminal activities can be conveniently carried out under the banner of freedom, democracy and human rights," it said.

The statement was implicitly critical of Thai policy and attitudes toward exiles from Myanmar, calling camps inside Thailand housing refugees from the Yangon regime "breeding grounds for armed violence and sanctuaries for radicals."

Some if not all five of the embassy raiders came from a refugee camp run by the Thai Interior Ministry.

In the press statement, as well as in another official one published in Myanmar newspapers Monday, the government also accused some of the foreign hostages with collaborating with the militants.

"Investigations revealed that some foreigners who were present at the visa section of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok when the armed terrorists seized the embassy, were there in guise of visa applicants, with the prior arrangements with the terrorists," said the statement in the state-controlled press. It did not specify which foreigners.

No independent evidence has emerged to support that assertion, although several hostages afterward expressed sympathy for the student rebels and their cause.