KAO WAO NEWS No. 36

 

An electronic newsletter for social justice and freedom in Burma

 

No. 36, January 16-29, 2003

 

 

READER’S FRONT

TEACHING MON BANNED BY JUNTA

AN ORDER TO SHOOT EVERY MAN IN UNIFORM

FORCED LOGGING FOR NEW ARMY BASE

NEW MON STATE PARTY HOLDS FIFTH CONFERENCE

LICENSE TO RAPE: RUNAWAY SOLDIERS DISCLOSE

POCKET MONEY FOR NEW RECRUIT

ARMY CONFISCATED LAND FOR PRAWN PROJECT

BURMA’S FORMER FIRST LADY REMEMBERED

DISSIDENTS UNDER THE THAI JUNGLE BOOT

PROTEST AT WAIVER OF EU VISA BAN ON DICTATOR

 

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READERS’ FRONT

 

Dear Readers,

We invite comments and suggestions on improvements to Kao-Wao newsletter. With your help, we hope that Kao-Wao News will continue to grow to serve better the needs of those seeking social justice in Burma. And we hope that it will become an important forum for discussion and help readers to keep abreast of issues and news.

 

In addition, we also would like to thanks David Arnott for archiving all Kao-Wao’s news in the Burma Online Library, which allows our readers to search for particular subjects as well as browse by subject and date.

 

Kao Wao News is now archived in the Online Burma Library at;

http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=1215&lo=d&sl=0

 

Regards,

Editor

kaowao@hotmail.com

 

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Editor,

I was so surprised that Kao Wao news quoted from the HRP’s propaganda that the HRP burnt the SPDC’s rice stock. (Kao-Wao No.35, “Junta’s Rice Stock Burnt by Mon Armed Group”).  I think you don’t know about the real situation in southern Ye township.  You should separate between the breakaway HRP Mon armed group and the other led by Nai Bin and Nai Hloin who continue to fight against the regime. Please don't exploit Nai Bin’s group as a member of the HRP.  Nai Bin said that he did not want to become a rival with the NMSP. 

Their group is not a member of the HRP anymore.

 

T Taw

(Via Monnet)

 

Editor’s note:

Thank you for your comment.  Kao-Wao did not mention the rice stock was burnt by the HRP even though we used the source from the HRP.  In the article, we clearly said “-- on Burma’s Independence Day, about thirty armed Mon guerrillas led by Nai Bin and Hong Kon from the Monland Restoration Army (MRA) ambushed and fired upon a Burma Army camp burning their rice stock to the ground.”  Actually, the Monland Restoration Army was named by Nai Hloin and the other armed group in Tenasserim area before the HRP was formed.  The MRA group, also known as Outrageous Force (Dorb Dein HuMarn), led by Nai Hloin was sporadically active in Ye and Ye-Byu area by guerrilla war before Colonel Pan Nyunt split from the NMSP.

 

Dear Kao-Wao,

Leaders of the NMSP are too patient at maintaining a peaceful solution rather than battlefield approach.  What are the main issues that they discuss at the Party’s congress, who will be elected as the new leaders? 

Could you provide more detail on the NMSP’s meeting?

 

Sincerely,

Banya Htow (Bangkok)

 

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TEACHING MON BANNED BY JUNTA

(By Taramon, January 26, 2003)

 

The Burmese authorities have enforced the ban on the teaching of Mon language in schools according to a Mon community source from southern Burma.

 

The banning of Mon literacy followed the order given by Mawlamyine based Southeast Military Command, issued in November 2002.  The statement said, "Teaching of the Mon language at government schools must be immediately stopped".  Following the order, many schools in Mawlamyine and Kyaik Ma-Yaw townships have stopped teaching the ethnic language to the Mon children in the New Year.

 

According to a source from the office of the New Mon State Party, the SPDC authorities and the NMSP are discussing this issue but no result has been reached at the moment.

 

Ms. Mi SarDar, the Chief of the Mon National Education Office said that the Mon Education system was well established and running three High Schools in the strong hold areas with over 900 teachers. The teachers were appointed on a voluntary basis and the Committee only provided basic stipends to over one hundred schools in Mon State, Karen State and Tenasserim Division.

 

“This is not the first time teachers are ordered to stop teaching Mon in the government schools, in the brown area where both of the SPDC and NMSP have control, educators have always encountered problems in competing administrations,” said Nai Nyan Mon, a Mon teacher from Ye township.

 

“Management issues within the cease-fire agreement reached in 1995 between the two sides have not dealt with this problem until now.  The Military Intelligence (MI), the most powerful branch of the SPDC, normally threatens teachers and volunteers for teaching Mon whenever they want to give pressure to the Mon political parties”, he added.

 

The rights to teach Mon language have been violated by the regime and very often Mon teachers have been arrested, tortured, forced to resign, and physically or sexually harassed by the authorities, accused of being involved in politics or supporting the anti-government groups.

 

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Mon State at War

 

AN ORDER TO SHOOT EVERY MAN IN UNIFORM

(Based on a report of IMNA and Kao-Wao, January 16, 2003)

 

The officer of Burmese Army in southern Ye township of Mon State ordered his troops to shoot down anyone who appears in an army uniform during its offensive, according to local source.

 

On December 29, 2002, the Infantry Battalion No. 61 led by Captain Tin Aung Khaing arrested two village headmen at the coffee shop of Sakhom village for wearing army uniform shirts.  Nai Kyaw and Nai Own Myint were accused of being insurgents for wearing rebel-like shirts and arrested; the soldiers covered their faces, tortured and beat them during interrogation.  After severely beating the villagers, the army understood that two men were innocent.

 

Shortly after, Captain Tin Aung Khaing barked out orders to the local people in southern Ye township that they were not allowed to wear army uniform shirts and would be shot and killed on site if they do so, no questions asked.

 

The witness said two men were later sent to Ye army prison as punishment and released after their families paid the Commander 100,000 Kyat for each. 

Both men needed immediate treatment in the hospital because of the pain and injuries inflicted by the torture both in the village and in the army lock-up.

 

Local sources reported that the Burmese Army LIB No. 273, 280, 31 and 61 have launched an offensive to wipe out Mon armed groups in the last three months. The standard operating procedure of the Burmese army is to make civilians targets in their war against the opposition groups and gun down indiscriminately villagers who happen to be working out in the open.

 

As in all military dictatorships, suppressing insurgent groups involves oppressive action against the civilian base, through depopulation measures, by diluting their ethnic homogeneity, land confiscation, and resettlement areas to act as buffers against perceived enemy forces.  All of these measures are taking place in Monland and throughout Burma in the ethnic areas.

 

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Life in Mon State

 

FORCED LOGGING FOR NEW ARMY BASE

(Based on IMNA, January 22, 2003)

 

Civilians from Mon State were ordered to collect lumber for the construction of a battalion of the Burma Army in their area.

 

In January, reported the IMNA Mon News group from the Thailand Burma border, Anin and Htin-Yuu (Kwan Proi) villages of Thanbyu Zayat Township were forced to cut down trees and saw it into 280 tons of lumber, which will be used to construct a new artillery regiment No. 315.

 

The local witness said Anin and Htin-Yuu villages were busy cutting logs after receiving an order from the authorities in early January.  "The order we received from the village headmen said we need to cut down trees from our areas and saw it into lumber.   If we don’t provide this amount, then we have to buy it, 280 tons in total required by the army”, a villager said.

 

"Because of this order, if we can’t buy lumber from other places, we have to cut all of our rubber plantation trees,” protested another villager.

 

According to the IMNA source, Mon farmers need to find laborers and hire the equipment needed for the logs and pay for all expenses. For those who have to buy lumber from the outside, they have to pay 200, 000 Kyat per ton.

 

The villagers complained this is the first time that they have had to provide lumber to the authorities and the Burmese Army under force.

 

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Mon national affairs

 

NEW MON STATE PARTY HOLDS FIFTH CONFERENCE

(Reported by Gong Ong)

 

Ye, January 20, 2003 -- Cadres and delegates of the New Mon State Party gathered at Nyi Sar camp in southern Mon State to review and discuss the political role and to elect new Party leaders.

 

Selected delegates from both wings of the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA) and Party’s Administrative bodies of Tavoy, Moulmein and Thaton districts gathered at their headquarters for the fifth conference during the cold winter at BeeRee River in the jungle.

 

The New Mon State Party (NMSP) normally holds the conference every three years to review the preceding 3 years and discuss future working plans in their struggle to regain a democratic Mon State within a Federal Union in Burma.  According to the source from the NMSP’s liaison office at the Thai-Burma border, about a hundred delegates attended the fifth conference.

 

Even though the NMSP seems to be more united and stronger after the split led by Colonel Nai Pan Nyunt last year, the popularity among the Mon public has gradually fallen throughout the 90s, said a retired NMSP leader.  NMSP membership has declined since the fall of its strong hold base, Three Pagodas Pass in 1990 and then the cease-fire agreement with the Burmese regime in 1995.

 

In the New Year, Australia based Mon National Council and Mon migrant workers in Thailand urged the NMSP to reconsider its position on the cease-fire agreement with the regime as a New Year resolution.  The two groups asked the NMSP to review cease-fire policy and to fight corruption among the Party leaders, mismanagement and over taxation to the Mon civilians.

 

Many have frustrated with the cease-fire agreement between the NMSP and the Burmese regime in June 1995 as human rights abuses such as forced labor, rape, torture and extra judicial killing by the State Peace and Development Council regime continue in the Mon areas.  Due to dissatisfaction over the cease-fire, many fighters have split from the Party since 1996.  The MNLA’s strongest division, the Mergui Battalion from the south, broke away in 1996 and a Central Committee member Colonel Pan Nyunt had split and formed the Hongsawatoi Restoration Party in 2001.

 

The NMSP was founded by Nai Shew Kyin (a) Nai Ba Lwin in July 1958 when the Mon Peoples Front (MPF) surrendered to the U Nu’s Parliamentary government claiming to the Mon supporters that it was an exchange of arms for democracy.  Since it was founded Nai Shwe Kyin (90 years), who now lives in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, retains the position of President.

 

The Party split into two factions in 1981 before reuniting in 1987.  Some observers had claimed the split was due to international theoretical confrontation between Nai Shwe Kyin’s pro China and Nai Nonla’s anti Communist Party of Burma (CPB) and China, but many agreed that it was based on power struggles and personal conflict between the two factions.

 

However, the NMSP remains the strongest political armed group for the Mon public and many experienced and intellectual leaders are fighting for the right cause within the Party.  On the other hand, many energetic leaders have left the movement and lived in the third countries, Thailand and back home said a former member of the NMSP.  “There are some good leaders like, Nai Rotsa, Nai Hongsar and Nai Htow Mon who remain in the jungle, but some senior leaders such as Nai Than Tin, Nai Zar and Nai Tin Aung have also retired after the cease-fire, he added.

 

According to Irrawaddy, NMSP senior leader Nai Hongsar told the BBC’s Burmese Service that the Fifth Conference would be looking into the expansion of the Burmese army bases in Mon State as well as land confiscation by the Burmese troops.

 

The NMSP needs more strong leaders to fight corruption and to reform the party in gaining public support.  Even though, the present CEC (Central Executive Committee) leaders are sincere in their cause, they are not decisive and strong enough, argued Nai Waeng, a Community leader from Mudon.

 

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Rape used as a weapon of war

 

LICENSE TO RAPE: RUNAWAY SOLDIERS DISCLOSE

(Based on SWAN’s report and Kao-Wao, January 20, 2003)

 

According to Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), three soldiers who defected from the Burmese Army at the Thai-Burma border on January 17, 2003 testified that their officer boasted about raping women.

 

The soldiers, aged 17, 19 and 26, who had defected with their weapons from Infantry Battalion 226 testified that their commanding sergeant Myint Htay had boasted to them last month about having raped "five or six" women in Shan State.

 

The three soldiers, all forcibly recruited into the SPDC Army within the past year, were stationed at the border for only a few months, after undergoing training near Kengtung.  "If officers feel comfortable boasting to their troops about raping women, it is clear that the culture of impunity for sexual violence in the SPDC Army is still in place," said Hseng Noung of the Shan Women's Action Network.

 

The soldiers, one of whom was only 16 when arrested at a bus station in Central Burma and forced to enlist, also said that there were child soldiers as young as twelve stationed at the SPDC camp opposite Piang Luang. It remains to be seen how the soldiers’ testimonies will affect the Burmese government’s denial of SWAN’s report on rape charges that attracted international and public condemnation.  The Burmese government’s refusal to uphold the rights of woman on this charge indicates quite clearly the gender bias in Burmese society that they are devalued in all civil matters and whose testimonies of rape charges in Shan State were ignored and discredited.

 

Meanwhile, abuse, violence and discrimination against women go unpunished in other parts of Burma where the territorial Burmese army patrols.

 

Recently, according to a source from Khaw-Zar village, Ye township, troops from Infantry Battalion No. 273 being charged with the attempted rape of three women on November 7, 2002 in a village replied that they could “do anything they want.”

 

In searching for the Mon armed group, the Battalion No 273, surrounded the village and attempted to rape three women in the process, they targeted two Mon cultural dancers and a schoolteacher, a witness who recently arrived to the border said.  They were freed after the schoolteacher asked the soldiers not to harm them.  "The dancers stalled the soldiers saying they were sick before other people started to arrive,” said the witness.

 

"This is a black area and we can do anything we want," the army officer angrily told the villagers after the village headmen reported the case to him.

 

“These villagers came from another village for a cultural show organized by the teachers in the area.  They had to travel quite a distance to see the show but it was cancelled due to incident.  This has routinely happened to us like the Shan women, the only consistent thing that the Burmese Army seems to be able to do," said Nai Ba, a 67-year-old man.

 

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POCKET MONEY FOR NEW RECRUIT

(Reported by Taramon)

 

Thanbyu Zayat, January 22, 2003 -- The Burmese Army has launched a campaign in Mon State giving Kyat 200,000 as an inducement to encourage young people to join the army, local residences said.

 

The officer of Light Infantry Battalion No. 31 addressed the public that it was impossible to live without the Army where robbery takes place very often in their town. “Only the Army is able to protect crimes in the community. 

If you want to become a soldier then just register your name in the list and we will grant you Kyat 200,000 as a bonus for recruitment used for your pocket money” the Captain said at the meeting.

 

“The purpose is to expand the military with this secret campaign in our city”, a Thanbyu Zayat resident said.

 

According to a local administrator, the Army is facing difficulty in recruiting people from upper Burma (known as A-Nyar). There were many young soldiers from upper Burma serving in the army in the past but many people from there go to neighboring countries for better employment and many soldiers desert and sneak into Thailand as migrant laborers.

Despite a smearing campaign, local residents complained that the Army confiscated vegetable and fruit gardens between Ye and Than Phyu Za Yat Townships in the fruit seasons.  The soldiers set up their camp in the land they have taken from local people and they vigorously grabbed durian, betel-nut and lemon gardens in these areas when the food season arrived.

 

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ARMY CONFISCATED LAND FOR PRAWN PROJECT

(Kao-Wao, January 13, 2002)

 

Mudon -- The Burmese army has confiscated more land for a prawn project in Mudon Township since December 2003, a local source reported.

 

Kyauk Ta-Lone based, the Light Infantry Battalion No. 210 took 64 acres of land belonging to 9 local farmers from Yaung-Down and Kwan-Hlar villages of Mudon Township. The farm is located in the western side of Moulmein Ye railway. A notification statement from Mudon Township Peace and Development Council was issued to village headmen last October to cooperate with the regime’s Department of Survey for measuring occupied farms.  The announcement released by the regime said the land would be returned to farmers if the Army could not produce anything in the future.

 

But local farmers objected to this statement saying, “they’ll probably return our land to the local Land Committee and the committee will transfer it to the State Land Department”.  Nai Blai, a farmer from Kwan-Hlar village said it was a blatant act of violation toward farmers and they will endeavor to work for their land rights.

 

The Burmese military has occupied 200 acres of land at A-Bit village and another 200 acres at Sak Kaw village in 2002, in Mudon Township. "If no one can prevent them from taking the land like this, we can no longer survive,” concluded a man from Yaung-Down village said.

 

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BURMA’S FORMER FIRST LADY REMEMBERED

(Kao-Wao, January 18, 2003)

 

The former First Lady of Burma passed away in exile at her home in Canada on January 17, 2003.

 

Sao Hearn Kham, known as "Sao Mae" (Royal Mother) or Mahadevi, was the daughter of one of the famous Shan prince warriors, Khun Sang Tonhoong. She was married to Sao Shwe Thaike, Prince of Yawnghwe, who became the first president of Burma under parliamentary government and who died under what was described as mysterious circumstances during detention following Gen Ne Win's coup in 1962.

 

The well-known Shan women leader Mahadevi of Yawnghwe also served as a Member of Parliament from 1956 - 1960. After Sao Shwe Thaike's death, she joined the resistance movement and was elected as president of the Shan State War Council, the office she held until 1969 when she went into exile in Canada. Mahadevi, 86 years old is survived by her sons Tiger, Chao Tzang and Harn, and her daughters Sao Ying Sita and Sao Ying Hseng Leun.

 

The Mahadevi is immortalized in The White Umbrella, "the story of Burma as she lived it," according to author Patricia Elliot.  According to the family members, the funeral service will be held at Coquitlam, BC on January 25, 2003

 

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Security Alert

 

DISSIDENTS UNDER THE THAI JUNGLE BOOT

(Based on the Bangkok Post, January 22, 2003)

 

Several Burmese dissidents and grassroots groups were told with warning to leave Thailand immediately. They were told that if caught again, they would face legal action.

 

“The Thai government has neglected the legitimacy of the Burmese government and has chosen to ignore and have no regard for the grassroots members of the Burmese democracy movement”, commented an observer. But some of the ‘illegals’ defied the warning, which led to the arrest of five people who were being detained at Sangkhla Buri police station. The commander denied that the crackdown was aimed at pleasing the Burmese government ahead of a visit to Rangoon by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and army chief Somdhat Attanant.

 

Gen Somdhat's two-day visit is set for Jan 31, while the premier will be there on Feb 9-10. Maj-Gen Mana said the Surasee Task Force had been lenient to the illegal immigrants for a long time. He accused them of being troublemakers and said complaints from Thai villagers had prompted the force to move against them. He claimed that they only enjoyed support from some Thai officials in Bangkok.

 

Maj-Gen Mana said he was investigating the aliens' claim that some Thai officials took bribes from the illegal immigrants and also issued fake Thai ID cards to them.

 

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International campaign

 

PROTEST AT WAIVER OF EU VISA BAN ON DICTATOR

(Cited from ICFTU Online)

 

Brussels, January 27, 2003 ­ The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) have protested to the European Union over the attendance of representatives of the Burmese military dictatorship at a Ministerial meeting between the European Union and ASEAN countries in Brussels on 27 and 28 January.

 

On 16 October 2002, the EU Council of Ministers renewed its longstanding visa ban on members of Burmese regime, amongst other sanctions. The ICFTU maintains that by granting a visa to SPDC Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win, the EU is being inconsistent with its own policy decisions.

 

Khin Maung’s visit takes place against the background of continued repression in Burma, generalized forced labour and attacks on trade unionists and other democracy activists by the military junta. International concern is also growing about the lack of any genuine progress in the so-called “secret dialogue” process between the generals and the democratic opposition. Despite the release from house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2002, heavy restrictions remain on the National League for Democracy, including monitoring of their communications and movements, and threats against NLD activists.

 

“The Burmese dictatorship continues to run the country as virtual forced labour camp, with the military compelling adults and children to work for the army and on infrastructure projects”, said ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder, adding that “the European Union should uphold its formal commitment not to allow representatives of this vicious regime to enter Europe, let alone take part in these talks. The EU decision risks conferring some degree of respectability on one of the world’s most repressive regimes and sending a signal to the junta that their duplicitous actions, talking about dialogue but in fact increasing repression, can lead to international credibility”.

 

The ICFTU last October submitted a comprehensive file of evidence to the UN’s International Labour Organisation detailing the continued use of forced labour in Burma, including torture, rape and murder of civilians. Under pressure from the ICFTU, Global Union Federations and Burma democracy groups, several multinational companies have decided to withdraw from the country, however the international trade union movement’s monitoring of foreign investment shows that over 300 multinationals continue to have business links with the military regime.

 

The ICFTU will join a number of Brussels-based organisations at a demonstration against Khin Maung’s visit, on Tuesday 28 January

 

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