By Aung Hla Tun
NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - Myanmar announced the arrest on Thursday of a man accused of carrying out grenade attacks last month that killed 10 people and wounded 170 in what police said was an attempt to derail this year's long-awaited election.
Phyo Wai Aung, a 32-year-old member of the dissident group Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW), was one of four suspects behind the April 15 attack during a New Year festival in the biggest city, Yangon, the country's police chief said.
The incident was followed two days later by the bombing of a controversial hydropower plant in northern Myanmar, the latest in a number of unexplained attacks in the army-ruled country as it prepares for its first election in two decades.
Public criticism of the election, for which no date has been set, is rare in Myanmar, where more than 2,100 "prisoners of conscience" are in detention, many of them because of their political views.
Myanmar's ruling junta typically blames the mysterious bombings, which have also taken place at restaurants, temples, or government-run hotels in Yangon, on "destructive elements", usually ethnic separatists or exiled dissident movements.
Claims of responsibility for the bombings are rarely made, although the VBSW has previously admitted involvement in some incidents.
National police chief Khin Yi said those behind the April 15 grenade attacks had also left a bomb at the same place, made using a beer can stuffed with C4 plastic explosives and wired to a cellphone -- the first of its kind in Myanmar.
ATTACK ON ELECTION?
"Fortunately, the bomb was not detonated for some unknown reasons," Khin Yi said, adding that Myanmar was cooperating with Interpol and Thai police to secure the arrest of other suspects thought to be hiding in border areas.
He said VBSW was responsible for 19 bombings in the country, with Yangon's Traders Hotel, the Panorama Hotel and Zawgyi House restaurant among the targets. There were 10 different blasts across the country in April alone, he said.
"They carried out these attacks with intent to disrupt peace and stability, to terrorise innocent people and to see the 2010 election dissolved," Khin Yi told Yangon-based reporters and diplomats invited, without explanation, to the new capital Naypyitaw on Thursday.
"But we will not deviate from our plan to hold elections," he added.
The polls have been widely derided as sham aimed at legitimising five decades of unbroken military rule in the former Burma, where critics say the generals are determined to hold a vote that will allow them to continue to run the country behind a civilian-fronted government.
Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese academic based in Thailand, said more bombings were likely in the run-up to the polls and suggested the military could be also be behind some incidents to justify its role in running the country.
"A lot of things are coming to a head now, there's a lot of opposition to this regime, from different groups and I wouldn't be surprised if this will happen a lot more," he said.
"The military itself has every reason to keep the country in a state of instability because it keeps it in power.
"There's so much propaganda from the regime, and little evidence of these destructive elements, so the public is not always convinced".
Writing and additional reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Alex Richardson
Reuters India
