By BA KAUNG Friday, July 15, 2011
In Jan. 2006, a mass funeral took place in Kutkai in southern Muse Township in Shan State for KIA soldiers and civilians allegedly murdered by the Burmese army. (Photo:KIA)
Burma's Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo should be investigated by a United Nations' Commission of Inquiry for his role as regional commander during a series of brutal massacres in Shan State, says the leadership of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
In interviews conducted last week with The Irrawaddy at their military headquarters in Laiza, Kachin State, three of the influential leaders of the KIA—retired Col. James Lum Dung, Brig-Gen Gun Maw, and Col. Zau Raw—laid out detailed reports with maps and photographs that they said proves conclusively that the Burmese army committed atrocities against Kachin soldiers and civilians over the past 10 years.
The first and second of these massacres, according to the KIA, came in 2001 under the watch of Burma's new vice-president who was Northeast Regional Commander at that time.
Asked why evidence of such atrocities had never before been reported, the KIA leaders said that they had not publicized the massacres to avoid destroying the fragile political process during the 17-year ceasefire and while the constitution was being drafted.
Collectively and individually, the KIA leaders said that now that the ceasefire has been broken by the Burmese army, and that all hope of political negotiation has broken down, the KIA wants to present its allegations to the UN, and claims that the four mass killings and three summary executions constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to the KIA's documentation, which is written in Kachin language, the first incident occurred in March 2001, in the countryside a few kilometers from Lau Jai village in Mung Si District, which is in Muse Township in northern Shan State.
The area was at the time openly under the control of the KIA. At 9 am on March 22, four KIA soldiers on patrol came across a unit of approximately 100 Burmese infantry troops of Division 242 led by Maj. Khin Maung Hla, the commander of Kutkai Military Command in Muse.
Initially, the Burmese patrol requested the KIA soldiers to guide them to the village of Shauk Haw. Before reaching the village, the four Kachin soldiers were attacked, disarmed and tied up. At around 2 pm, they were all shot dead. Their bodies were half-buried on top of each other in a shallow grave in the forest.
The KIA recovered the corpses one month later. They recorded the deceased as: Sergeant Zatau Dau Hawng, and private soldiers Laphai Zau Bawk, Dashi Nawng Hkum and Kareng Tu Lum. The KIA report says a formal funeral was held for the four on April 22, 2001.
On the same day, a harrowing scene was played out at a small agricultural farm in Mung Si District in Shan State. The KIA report lists the plot in the hamlet of Nawng Tau Si Sa Pa, and says the farm was run by the KIA's 2,000-strong Battalion 4, as part of a regional development program initiated after the ceasefire in 1994.
It is alleged that a column of 70 Burmese troops approached the farm and requested a meeting with Second Lieutenant Hpuwang Naw Seng of the KIA. However, as Naw Seng was otherwise engaged, the KIA's Warrant Officer Lt. Gam Seng went out to meet the Burmese unit which was led by Lt. Col. Nyo Win from Light Infantry Division 242—the very same unit accused of involvement in the executions in Muse.
As soon as Gam Seng came before the Burmese troops, he was allegedly grabbed and tied up. Simultaneously, Burmese government troops broke into the farmhouse and arrested four KIA soldiers, including Naw Seng, and two civilians.
According to the KIA records, the captives were taken to a nearby forest and physically tortured throughout the night. They were all dead by the following morning.
Some weeks later, the KIA recovered the seven bodies in a swamp. Each had multiple stab wounds, which the KIA said were inflicted by bayonets. Each of the bodies showed evidence of burning to the genitals. On some trees nearby, the KIA found samples of the victims' hair mixed with blood.
They concluded the captives had been tied to the trees, tortured, stabbed and burned, before being killed.
“The soldiers were so severely beaten up that their bodies were just a pile of broken bones,” the report describes. “Their dead bodies were stamped on and crushed into the mud near a creek.”
The victims were named as: Second Lt. Naw Seng, Warrant Officer Gam Seng, Lance Corporal Aik Nyi, private soldiers Nhkum Ban Aung Mai and Ma Aik Nai. One civilian was a Kachin man, Zum Zang Hawng Lum, who was the nephew of Brig-Gen James Lum Dung, the then head commander of KIA Battalion 4 operating in northern Shan State. The other civilian was identified only as a Chinese man.
In his interview with The Irrawaddy in Laiza last week, Brig-Gen James Lum Dung—who took up arms against the Burmese troops in 1961 and retired as the KIA regional military commander in 2007—said the killings were a deliberate provocation by the Burmese troops under the supervision of Tin Aung Myint Oo.
“Their motive was to drive our troops out of Shan State,” said James Lum Dung. “Tin Aung Myint Oo was mainly responsible for these killings.”
In seeking an explanation for the killings, James Lum Dung said he went to Lashio in Shan State in 2001 to confront Tin Aung Myint Oo.
“He made no response whatsoever when I told him about the unprovoked massacres, “ James Lum Dung said. “Instead, he offered me 100,0000 kyat [US $1,000]. I did not accept it.
“We were furious about what had happened, but our leaders decided to wait for the completion of the constitution-drafting process,” he said, referring to the military-sponsored constitution that was not completed until 2008, and which was later rejected by the Kachin leadership for its exclusion of rights for ethnic minorities.
Documentation for a third incident alleged to have taken place in August 2005 in Hwak Kai village in the Kutkai district of Muse Township was presented by the KIA to The Irrawaddy. By this time, Tin Aung Myint Oo was no longer regional commander; Maj-Gen Myint Hlaing, the current minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, was overseeing operations.
Falsely accused of illegally collecting taxes from local traders, the KIA's administrative officer U Sang Lu, 50, was arrested and taken away by Col. San Shwe Thar of the Burmese army's Northeast Regional Command.
U Sang Lu was found dead the following day with three bullet wounds. His skull and two of his ribs were fractured, and the skin on his wrist had been torn away.
“It was a groundless murder,” the document said. “The KIO [the political wing of the KIA] has long collected tax from local businesses. U Sang Lu was performing a routine duty, but was ruthlessly killed.”
It is alleged that the following year, five KIA soldiers and one civilian were killed in cold blood by Burmese government troops, this time in the Bum Pri Bum area of Kutkai in southern Muse Township.
On Jan. 2, 2006, a Burmese army patrol of 12 soldiers led by Maj. Hla Moe from Infantry Division 68 allegedly arrived at a KIA administrative office in Bum Pri Bum.
“While our soldiers prepared to serve the Burmese troops with drinks, they were all shot dead in the office and in the kitchen,” the record states. The KIA document goes on to say that the Burmese unit immediately called in reinforcements, and prevented the KIA from entering the area and collecting the remains.
Led by Brig-Gen Gun Maw, who is the current KIA deputy military chief, a Kachin military delegation met with Burmese army officers and asked to recover the bodies of the murdered KIA soldiers. They were permitted to collect the bodies on Jan. 6 only to find the bodies had already been cremated. Gun Maw said they were presented with “bags of ashes.”
The victims were recorded in the KIA records as: administrative officer Laban Gam Hpang, Sergeant Brang Mai, office staffers Zahkwng Kawang Hkam, Maran Tu Shan and Brang Shawng, and a civilian from the village named as Aik Nyunt.
Col. Zau Raw, the current commander of KIA Battalion 4 operating in Shan State, told The Irrawaddy he clearly recalls the incident in 2006. He said the Burmese military officials later offered up an excuse that the KIA soldiers were mistaken for members of an armed militia which had not signed a ceasefire agreement with the government.
“We suppressed our emotions in those days, because we were waiting for some sort of political result from the constitution,” said Zau Raw, adding that he remembers crying as he led the funeral for the slaughtered men.
Zau Raw was one of the KIA's highest ranking officials who participated in the constitution-drafting process.
He said that despite the murders, the KIA has abided by a code of ethics, and has returned Burmese soldiers that they arrested during recent clashes to their units.
The KIA presented documentation for two other killings in October 2005 when two KIA administrators were murdered by Burmese soldiers in Shan State in separate incidents.
The KIA officials accuse former Gen. Myint Hlaing, who is the current minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, of responsibility for the killings in 2005 and 2006 as he was regional commander at the time.
Gen. Gun Maw said that KIA leaders did not previously attempt to draw international attention to those incidents because they did not want to impede the political process that they hoped would bring autonomy to Kachin State.
Gun Maw said that the Burmese army leadership has long exercised a systematic policy of extra-judicial killings against the KIA.
“Our soldiers did not die in vain,” he said, adding that the news that one of his soldiers, who was arrested by Burmese soldiers last month in a KIA liaison office and brutally killed, has received international attention which will add weight to the KIA's demands during negotiations with the Naypyidaw government.
As opposed to the 1994 ceasefire with the Burmese government, the KIA said it has made it clear that any future ceasefire talks with the government must include meaningful political dialogue—otherwise they will continue fighting.
Indeed, negotiations for a ceasefire may already be doomed. Many Kachins cannot forgive the Burmese army for the murders, and many find it galling that the KIA would sit down with a government delegation, especially if it includes Tin Aung Myint Oo.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, ex-Maj Aung Lynn Htut, who defected to the US in March 2005, described Tin Aung Myin Oo as “a butcher,” but also attributed the unprovoked massacres to a strategic policy of trying to inflict a stranglehold over the armed ethnic groups over the past decade.
According to Aung Lynn Htut, the incidents were partly related to Tin Aung Myint Oo's hostile attitude toward the ethnic armies. “He was well-known as 'The Butcher' in the army,” he said. “He was always quick to slap his subordinates in the face, and he constantly reiterated a mantra of 'Root out the enemy at all costs!'”
He said that another factor that contributed toward the massacres was that since early 2000, former military chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe had been ordering regional military commanders to tackle harshly the armed ethnic groups, including the KIA, and expand Burmese army presence in the ethnic areas—in preparation for a violation of the ceasefires and a resumption of hostilities.
The KIA officers presented the common view that Vice-President Tin Aung Myint Oo plays a critical role in the current armed conflicts. According to Col. Zau Raw and the other KIA officials, the massacres they described to The Irrawaddy should be investigated by the UN and international bodies responsible for deciding whether to proceed with the proposed Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“We call on the United Nations to investigate these incidents,” said Zau Raw. “We will never forget them.”
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21705&page=3
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