FINANCIAL TIMES: Burma’s defiant military junta captured a leading dissident who had been on the run for weeks as its official mouthpiece warned “national traitors will soon meet their tragic ends.” Htay Kywe, a charismatic democracy activist who had been the target of a huge manhunt since late August, was seized in a raid on a house where he was hiding with two other members of the 88 Generation Students group. Amnesty International expressed concern that the arrested dissidents would be tortured.
Although it made no direct reference to the Saturday arrests, The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the junta’s official mouthpiece, printed an ominous warning on Sunday to what it called “internal and external subversive elements” – those calling for UN action on Burma and opposed to the junta’s plan for holding elections under a new constitution enshrining military dominance over public life. “Everyone knows that such national traitors will soon meet their tragic ends,” it said. “The destructive elements will dwindle away like camphor balls.” MORE
[Illustration by ALEX FINE]