"Noble Intentions" -- Inconvenient Consequences

"We used a laundry detergent box with a wire attached to make it look like a bomb. We did not bring any [real] weapons because we had absolutely no intention of harming anyone."
"In the eyes of the authorities, I am not a pro-democracy exile but simply just a former hijacker or a terrorist."
"Our country was closed to the outside world. Terrible things were being done to our people by the government in power. Life in the jungle was difficult, brutal and dangerous."
"I became desperate and came up with a plan that was dramatic, yet without harming anyone. I rejected violence. I approached the pilot and told him we were students and that we wanted the plane diverted to Bangkok."
"I am a peace-loving person. I lived under a regime that was barbaric. They were exterminating ethnic groups. They were murdering those who opposed them. I had to act."
"I recognize the danger of our actions. Even though our intentions were noble, the means we chose were wrong."
Than Soe, 48, Asylum seeker

Than Soe, left, is fighting to stay in Canada as a human rights activist rather than be deported back to Myanmar. Supplied

"I do not believe he [Than Soe] had any intentions of harming anyone on that plane."
"I believe the students were just inexperienced boys who wanted to make a political statement and were neither dangerous nor threatening."
Tienchai Sirisampan, deputy prime minister, Thailand

"This matter has been proceeding since 2004 and I can find no evidence in the record to suggest that the applicant poses any kind of risk or threat to national security or public safety."
"[The Canadian Minister of Public Safety's logic is] unintelligible and unreasonable".
Justice James Russell, Federal Court of Appeals

Mr. Soe lives in Canada with his family. He arrived in Canada in 2003 and immediately claimed political asylum, a man from Burma who had rejected the military administration of his country of birth and who had become a political activist attempting to overturn the military. In the process he became an admirer and adherent of a more famous political activist, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, advocating for free elections. A woman whose courage had earned her admiration and honourary Canadian citizenship.

After Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military government ruling Myanmar, Than Soe, then 19 years of age, along with two other young activists sought a way to alert the world to the plight of his country. They decided to hijack a plane and have it fly where their own government had no control, and there they would deliver their message. They obtained two seats aboard a flight heading to Rangoon, with 79 passengers and four crew.

The laundry detergent boxes they claimed were bombs convinced the pilot to land at a Thai military airbase where Than Soe and his colleagues meant to read a three-page statement along wth seven demands, written in English, stamped with bloody thumbprints. The demands? Release of Suu Kyi and all political prisoners; an end to the civil war against ethnic groups; and guarantees for freedom of expression.

It was Thailand's deputy prime minister who was delegated to negotiate the release of the passengers and crew with the hijackers. An eight-hour deliberation ensued during which time passengers were released. The negotiator, Tienchai Sirisampan, handed the hijackers two Thai newspapers reporting on the hijacking on their front page, along with the contents of the document and the demands. At which point Than Soe and his colleagues surrendered.

He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, but eventually pardoned and released after serving two-and-a-half years. The court was given a letter from the deputy prime minister that went a long way toward exonerating the young men of criminal intent. Released in 1990, Mr. Soe remained in Thailand until winning a scholarship to an American university in 1996. He had been enrolled in engineering studies from the age of 16 in Rangoon.

That was where his pro-democracy and humanitarian values were developed as a result of witnessing military abuses. It was when, on August 8, 1988 he attended student protests, identified later as the 8888 Uprising. These were protests that unleashed increasing violence by the military, with the army opening live fire on student demonstrators. An estimate of thousands were said to have died in the crackdown.

In the United States he earned an economic degree and began work on an engineering degree in 2001. And that's when U.S. immigration officials caught up with his history, arresting him. He was released after an American judge agreed that he did not represent a threat, and that if he were to be returned to Myanmar his life would likely be forfeit. When he left the U.S. it was for Canada, crossing illegally and applying for asylum as a refugee in 2003, in Kitchener, Ontario.

The Immigration and Refugee Board found him inadmissible, citing his history of engaging in an 'act of terrorism'. Appeals to the Federal Court and re-hearings and new appeals followed. The current minister of public safety cited him as a security threat last year, just as his predecessor had in 2006.
The Federal Court sent the case back to the Immigration and Refugee Board for reconsideration.

Working as a technician for a large Canadian company, Than Soe has lived a law-abiding life as a valuable citizen-in-waiting, hoping to be granted permanent residence status. In interviews he points out the atrocities committed by the current government of Myanmar against the Rohingya, formally acknowledged as a genocide by Canada and other Western democracies. Surely the government that declared its readiness to offer haven to Rohingya, can also embrace one who defended their human rights.

A government, furthermore, that has limitless patience for hordes of economic migrants illegally crossing into Canada, declaring themselves refugees and taking advantage of a long backlog of claims that stretch into years before each can be assessed. In the meantime, establishing themselves as residents, taking advantage of Canada's generous social welfare, becoming a drain on the health and welfare system, crowding homeless Canadians out of shelters by their very numbers.

Last year, Ralph Goodale, minister of public safety, denied Soe’s request to remain in Canada. Supplied