Another Face of ABSDF

In late 1972 or early 1973 when I was a 16 year-old boy soldier in a rifle battalion of Burmese Army Northern Command in Myitkyinar I had a rather unsettling encounter with a MIS captain.

It was the last few days of our boot camp and he, as the commanding-captain of MIS (Military Intelligence Service) unit attached to our battalion, was teaching us the one-day-course appropriately titled “Information Retrieval from Captured Enemies” or Torture 101 as a couple of college students among us later re-named it.

The MIS Captain was teaching us how to force the information out of a captured or wounded enemy combatant by a systematic torture. That day all 60 of us the green-grunts were sitting cross-legged on the hard ground in a wide semi-circle around him standing in front of his little office-shed near the battalion armoury and stockade.

Strangely, he had a piercing pair of cold black eyes which were so expressionless unlike normal people as if they didn’t have a human soul behind them. Only much later in the jungle I discovered the wild animals like brown bears have same sort of eyes, the killer's eyes.

“The most effective way is to chop one or both ears off, if the prisoner still refuses to tell you where his camp is or his gun cache is hidden. Of course, only after giving him a thorough beating and if he is still stubborn,” the hard-looking MIS Captain simply told us as if he was just teaching us how to strip a G3 rifle.

“But, you can’t just jump him and chop the ears off.  There’s a psychological angle in it,” continued he. “You have to plant a dreadful fear in him. You first have to tell him calmly that you are to cut his dick off. Only after that you pull one of his ears out and slowly cut it off.”

He paused a while for a maximum affect on us and then went on with his lecture. “I emphasize the word ‘slowly’ in the cutting. So that he would receive the worst pain of his life. A blunt knife is even better.”

“My point is once you shock him by chopping his ears off and make him believe that you’re goona chop his dick off too, he will sing all his secrets away to you. What you have to do is put your knife or bayonet to his dick. He will tell you everything you wanna know. The technique worked every time I used it. I never had to cut nobody’s dick once I chopped his ears off!” 

One has to be unbelievably cruel and really inhuman to become a torturer. Many Burmese soldiers I met and served together were definitely killers but most of them are not murderers and they universally hated the torturers among them. The Burmese soldiers hate the MIS men, period. The MIS men basically were animals as that’s what they had been trained and indoctrinated to become. Like Hitler’s Nazi SS Storm Troopers.

Though I tried my best to avoid any MIS man when I was running a Seafood Importing business between Sydney and Rangoon back in Mid 1990s, I was forced into shady business dealings by a powerful MIS Colonel in Rangoon. He was a known gun runner and notorious drug trafficker. He tried and almost killed me when I simply refused to cooperate. And he basically banned me from Burma for life. He has the same soul-less animal eyes as the MIS Captain I met before in 1973. 

I think I immediately know a Burmese MIS man when I see one.

Recently I’ve been doing long hours of research and writing about 1992 ABSDF Northern Army’s atrocities in Kachin land. And the young ABSDF men who committed those atrocious and sadistic crimes have frequently kept on reminding me of the cruel MIS men I encountered during the earlier part of my life in Burma.

The similarities were shockingly striking and the evidence keeps on popping out here and there as if the perpetrators of those 1992 crimes could simply be the MIS men or MIS-trained sleepers among the decent and also gullible students, the so-called 88 Generation.

The first evidence is the near-simultaneous events of MIS Khin Nyunt’s release from Jail and the direct peace offer from Aung Min, the Union Railway Minister responsible for the ceasefire negotiations with various armed-insurgents, to the alleged-criminals Dr. Naing Aung and Moe Thee Zun. 

Both men were former ABSDF Chairmen and both were being accused as fully or partly responsible for the tortures and rapes and murders of fellow ABSDF students in the border jungles after accusing them as MIS spies.

And Aung Min a graduate of DSA Intake 13 was reportedly once the Deputy Director of MIS well before now-retired Senior General Than Shwe (A pure army man) brutally dismantled the universally-hated MIS and put its head General Khin Nyunt in jail during the 2004 power struggle.

How he became the key member of reformist President Thein Sein’s group of moderates is quite questionable as the reason for Thein Sein’s recent release of Khin Nyunt as one of the political prisoners in Burma.

The second evidence is the sworn-accounts of students detained and tortured by the MIS inside various jails in Burma during February 1992, the same time the animals of ABSDF Northern Army led by the likes of Myo Win a blood-thirsty RIT student were murdering their own innocent comrades.

Former student leader Aung Moe Win, also an RIT student, wrote that during interrogation-cum-torture sessions in the Mandalay Prison the MIS men threatened to call the ABSDF Northern Army men if their student prisoners refused to answer their questions.

And following is the direct translation of Aung Moe Win’s narration of what happened exactly in the Mandalay Prison in February 1992.

“Actually while the ABSDF North killings were happening some of my colleagues from Ba-Ka-Tha (Central Students Union – Upper Burma) had been detained in the Mandalay Prison. Every night the Mandalay MIS men dragged them out of their cells and showed them the photos (of students freshly-killed in the ABSDF’s Pajau camp right on the Chinese border) just to confirm the identities of the deceased.

This is Htun Aung Kyaw, isn’t it? Is this one Soe Win Than’s? Who is this bastard?

My friends had to cry silently later (back in their cells) after seeing the photos of close friends already killed by their own comrades. The photos apparently taken just previous nights were arriving there very soon after every killing; their only logical conclusion was that the MIS men inside ABSDF were directly reporting to MIS in Mandalay, prompt and regular.

If that was the case who were the people sending Mandalay MIS those dreadful photos?  One thing so definitely certain is that they were not the ones who had been accused of MIS spies and already been killed for that!”

The third and most direct evidence is the questionable background of ABSDF(N) General Secretary Myo Win a UTC (University Training Corps) Sergeant from RIT (Rangoon Institute of Technology) and the really sadist torturer and blood-thirsty murderer.

The following eye-witness account is from Soe Lynn a former RIT student and also a former classmate and dorm-mate of Myo Win in RIT’s Popa Hall a boys-only-dormitory for junior RIT students. (Coincidentally, I was one of the three hall-tutors in that dormitory during the 1980-81 academic-year when I was a tutor in RIT just after my graduation from the Mechanical Engineering Department.)

“I have to write some unsettling things about Myo Win (ABSDF-N) from the time when we were just young RIT students. Just something I want you all to think about. I and Myo Win got into RIT same year. In our Third Year we were in the same dormitory too (Popa Hall). What I now want to say about had happened in that year.

One day a guest from Rangoon (City) visited Win Maw (Ye-Oo) and stayed for a while there. Same time a watch was stolen (from Myo Win’s room and the suspect was the city man). So Myo Win grabbed him and searched him all over. He couldn’t find the watch. He then came into my room and told me the whole thing and asked us to help him.

At that time in my room with me were my room-mate Kyaw Zwar Myint (Mogoke) and some other Mandalay students. So we followed him to Win Maw’s room to challenge that suspected thief again. 

Once he saw us and after hearing some terrifying threats from Ba Thaw (one of the Mandalay students) he the thief (his name was Ne Win Soe if I still remember correctly) admitted and pulled the stolen watch out of his walking-shoe and gave it back to Myo Win. He also arrogantly said to Myo Win that he was so dumb he couldn’t find the hidden watch.

That made Myo Win really angry and we especially Ba Thaw was really concerned about his (Ne Win Soe’s) safety. So Ba Thaw said to him that since you gave our watch back to us you do not worry too much and I would send you up to the bus stop. He then escorted the young man out of the dormitory. Everybody in RIT knew how brutal the students could become whenever a thief was caught.

By then it was dark outside. (Between the main road where the bus stop was and the Popa Hall was a large empty field with the Tha-maing College Canteen right smack in the middle.) Once Ba Thaw and Ne Win Soe reached near the Canteen suddenly appeared from the dark behind the Canteen was Myo Win in his full army uniform from UTC and a mob of RIT students.

They immediately jumped Ne Win Soe and bashed him to death. Ba Thaw was basically pushed out of the way by the mob. We all saw it from a distance and couldn’t do a thing to save that Ne Win Soe. 

If you looked back in the newspapers of those days you will find Ne Win Soe’s death notice. That incident was in late 1986 (just over a year before the 8-8-88 Uprising started by an unfortunate incident where young Phone Maw from RIT was killed by a so-called police operation to contain the student riots born out of a tea-shop brawl between some RIT students and the local mob).”

That was a true story as a few independent eye-witnesses have confirmed that case personally. So why wasn't Myo Win arrested and charged for that murder? Myo Win seemed to have apparent impunity even for murder. In Burma only the MIS agents had had that sort of absolute impunity.
  

What the evidence and the eyewitness accounts above were indicating strongly is that Myo Win and some other so-called student leaders of ABSDF might be the MIS agents placed among the real students as the sleepers.

And as a classic case of double-cross they had blatantly and successfully accused the real student leaders like Htun Aung Kyaw and other genuine students as the MIS agents and tortured the false confessions out of them and finally murdered them all.

The scariest thing is if ABSDF North really has been infiltrated and controlled by the Khin Nyunt’s MIS from the very beginning how about the ABSDF South or Central with similar cases of MIS accusations and killing spree there?

General Aung San,Father of Myanmar's.

My Father

He was born Feb. 13, 1915, Natmauk, Myanmar [Burma]—died July 19, 1947, Yangon, Myanmar nationalist leader and assassinated hero who was instrumental in securing Myanmar’s independence from Great Britain. Before World War II Mr Aung San was actively anti-British; he then allied with the Japanese during World War II, but switched to the Allies before leading the Myanmar drive for autonomy.

Born of a family distinguished in the resistance movement after the British annexation of 1886, Mr Aung San became secretary of the students’ union at Yangon University and, with U Nu, led the students’ strike there in February 1936. After Myanmar’s separation from India in 1937 and his graduation in 1938, he worked for the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (“We-Myanmar Association” or “Our Burma Association”), becoming its secretary-general in 1939.

While seeking foreign support for Myanmar’s independence in 1940,Mr Aung San was contacted in China by the Japanese. They then assisted him in raising a Myanmar military force to aid them in their 1942 invasion of Myanmar. Known as the “Burma Independence Army,” it grew with the advance of the Japanese and tended to take over the local administration of occupied areas. Serving as minister of defense in Ba Maw’s puppet government (1943–45), Mr Aung San became skeptical of Japanese promises of Myanmar independence, even if an unlikely Japanese victory were to occur, and was displeased with their treatment of Myanmar forces. Thus, in March 1945, Major General Aung San switched his Burma National Army to the Allied cause.

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the British sought to incorporate his forces into the regular army, but he held key members back, forming the People’s Volunteer Organization. This was ostensibly a veterans’ association interested in social service, but it was in fact a private political army designed to take the place of his Burma National Army and to be used as a major weapon in the struggle for independence.

Having helped form the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), an underground movement of nationalists, in 1944,Mr Aung San used that united front to become deputy chairman of Myanmar’s Executive Council in late 1946. In effect he was prime minister but remained subject to the British governor’s veto. After conferring with the British prime minister Clement Attlee in London, he announced an agreement (Jan. 27, 1947) that provided for Myanmar’s independence within one year. In the election for a constitutional assembly in April 1947, his AFPFL won 196 of 202 seats. Though communists had denounced him as a “tool of British imperialism,” he supported a resolution for Myanmar independence outside the British Commonwealth.

On July 19, the prime minister and six colleagues, including his brother, were assassinated in the council chamber in Yangon while the executive council was in session. His political rival, U Saw, interned in Uganda during the war, was later executed for his part in the killings.

I Hope The Best But ?

BANGKOK — “We’ll have to play it by ear, I guess,” said Thani Thongphakdi, a spokesman for the Thai Foreign Ministry.

Daw Aung San Su Kyi in Thailand (Photo-AP).

He was referring to the visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar’s democracy movement and a newly elected member of Parliament who arrived in Thailand on Tuesday. Ignoring a row of photographers awaiting her, she left the airport quickly without commenting.

A trip outside Myanmar is a personal milestone for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi — her first journey abroad in 24 years. But planning it appears to have been an afterthought. For example, no one from her office contacted the Thai Foreign Ministry, which normally coordinates such high-profile visits. “As far as I know, we have not been approached by her team,” Mr. Thani said a few hours before she was to land.

News reports said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would visit a Thai refugee camp in Tak Province that is home to ethnic minorities from Myanmar who fled during decades of fighting. But travel to the area is restricted by the Thai government, and the officials who are responsible for granting permission for such visits said they were in the dark.

“We are only learning about her arrival from the media, not from her team,” Suriya Prasatbuntitya, the governor of Tak, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “I guess we’ll have to get details of her schedule on our own — and be prepared.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi may meet with Abhisit Vejjajiva, the former Thai prime minister. She may also visit an area outside Bangkok that is home to thousands of migrant workers from Myanmar. Or not.

No one was available to confirm her schedule. The cellphone of U Nyan Win, the spokesman for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, was “power off” on Tuesday, according to an automated message.

It is not uncommon for dignitaries to withhold information about their travel schedules from the public for security reasons. It is unusual, however, for a visiting dignitary not to contact the government of the country he or she is visiting.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip to Thailand appears to have been organized by U Khun Tha Myint, who is described as her head of security.He spent the past four days setting up meetings and events, according to Andy Hall, a researcher who helped organize the meeting with migrant workers. Mr. Khun Tha Myint could not be reached by telephone on Tuesday.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s style might be described as spontaneous.

In the year and a half since her release from house arrest, those who have had dealings with her have generally been forgiving of the quirks of her operation: her staff is hard to reach and e-mails often go unanswered.

Less forgiving was U Thein Sein, the president of Myanmar. He was scheduled to visit Thailand this week, but he canceled the trip soon after news reports appeared saying that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would go.

Daw Aung San Su Kyi Meets President U Thein Sein.

Mr. Thein Sein, who has led the changes in Myanmar since coming to power last year, had been confirmed to speak this week at a conference sponsored by the World Economic Forum, the same group that puts on the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Organizers of the forum announced last week that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would also attend, and released a schedule giving her top billing, including a question-and-answer session titled “One-on-One Conversation With a Leader.”

Fon Mathuros, a spokeswoman for the World Economic Forum, said Mr. Thein Sein canceled his appearance with “no further explanation.”

U Nay Zin Latt, an adviser to Mr. Thein Sein, said the president could not make time to go.

“He is extremely busy with his work, and taking great care of transitioning and transformation,” Mr. Nay Zin Latt said in an e-mail. Thai officials said the president’s visit had been rescheduled for next week.

A meeting in August between Mr. Thein Sein and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi helped start the reforms now under way in Myanmar. In the months after that meeting, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi announced that she and her political party, the National League for Democracy, would rejoin the political system. In April, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in Parliament.

Among the crowd waiting at the Bangkok airport to catch a glimpse of her on Tuesday was a 24-year-old factory worker from Myanmar, Zin Oo Maung, who stitches jeans for 300 baht ($10) a day at a factory on the outskirts of the city. He turned down some overtime work so that he could greet Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.

“She is hope,” he said. “We hope our country’s economy gets better and we’ll be able to return.”

Daw Aung San Su Kyi's Supporters at Bangkok.

Though she spent much of the time since 1988 under house arrest, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi could have left Myanmar, but probably would not have been able to return. She stayed, believing that her absence would have made it easier for the military to crush the democracy movement. Her willingness to travel abroad now is a vote of confidence in Myanmar’s moves toward democracy.

Next month, she is scheduled to visit four European nations: Britain, where she will address the two houses of Parliament; Norway, where she will belatedly accept her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize; Switzerland, where she will deliver a speech to the International Labor Organization; and Ireland, where she will meet one of her keenest supporters, Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2.

Once Upon A Time In Myanmar (2)

A Soldier from LID 22.

Once we knew we were trapped the bespectacled man led me down the Lower Barr Street to find a possible way out. Two young school girls with us were also following us and they were so scared they wouldn’t let go the hem of my shirt from their tight grips.

While we were rushing pass the High Court on Lower Barr Street they cut off the power and the whole city had suddenly descended into a total darkness. Only the City Hall and Sule Pagoda were dimly lit by their own emergency generators. When I looked down at my little wrist watch the time was well over 11 O’clock. Right ahead of us were the lines of armed soldiers from Myanmar Navy blocking the street at the intersection of Lower Barr Street and Merchant Road.

We were now hopelessly trapped.

Bespectacled big brother now holding me tight by the neck whispered to me, “Little brother, we have to run into that lane between the MEB (Myanmar Economic Bank) branch and the American Embassy.” I told him that lane was a no-through-road as the other end was a dead end. He said, “I know, but we have no other way out. Soldiers have blocked everywhere and we just have to run into the American Embassy from the rear. Once I counted 1,2,3 we run through the gap between two soldiers to get into that lane.” 

He was determined but we were scared shitless. But I still explained to the two girls still holding me tight by my sides what we were going to do and started looking for a possible gap among the lines of soldiers standing at attention pose. We were all horribly shaking with fears. And the bayonets at the end of their rifles were horribly flashing in the moonlight.

The girls asked me what we were going to do if the soldiers started shooting at us. I had not a bloody idea so I just answered them to run to escape. The crowd around us had already accepted the fact that the soldiers were really going to fire soon and some people started crying out aloud while some even sung the anthem louder and louder.

Some were even shouting ridiculous stuff like People’s Soldiers Our Soldiers, People’s Army Our Army. And we could hear the loud cries of We are Myanmar, What we’re doing is For our Myanmar from the crowd behind us. I thought these cries were the desperate pleadings of people to the soldiers to disobey if their superiors gave them the orders to shoot.

Old US Embassy opposite Bandoola Park in Yangon.

By that time we were at a quite a distance from the crowd back at the Town Hall. There were only 20 or 30 people near us. Then the bespectacled big brother quickly counted 1,2,3 and we four ran through the lines of soldiers. Others followed us.

I didn’t even recall how I pulled through two soldiers the two young girls holding tight on my each hand. Amidst the yelling of the surprised soldiers I didn’t even remember how we four and the rest all got through unharmed without a scratch on us. But we got through the lines of soldiers.

Only later I could conclude that the possible reasons for our lucky escape were that the soldiers didn’t really expect us to run through them and they probably didn’t have the firing order yet and they were only the navy men stationed in Yangon. If they were the battle-hardened Chin soldiers coming from the frontline we would have been slaughtered like what happened to the rest just a few minutes later.

Taking Refuge in US Embassy

Once we were out of the Lower Barr Street we pushed away the barbed-wire barricades from the Embassy lane and tried to enter the American Embassy through its side door. But the brick wall behind the Embassy was more than two men’s height and the side entrance had a full-height one-way turnstile through which one can only get out not in. No way could we get into the embassy’s backyard through that turnstile.

So we broke through the door of the rear wall of the adjoining Government office and climbed onto the protruding air-conditioning units on the back wall of that office. From there we pulled ourselves onto the rows of barbed-wire mounted on the top of more than 20 foot high rear-brick-wall of the embassy.  From there we had to jump down onto the ground of the embassy’s narrow backyard. It was so high one of the young girls fell and sprained her ankle.

All together 22 in the backyard we counted. We didn’t even dare to breathe aloud. The backyard and the whole surrounding was completely dark and lifeless silent. Suddenly the lights in the backyard came on and the CCTV cameras mounted on the back wall of the Embassy were alive. Bespectacled big brother yelled out aloud in English that we were students and immediately the lights gone off.

Then someone from the laneway shouted through a handheld loudspeaker, “Hey, the group going in there, come out now. That area is the territory of a foreign diplomatic mission and you all will be prosecuted. Come out and go back homes now.” Then we heard someone calling the man with loud speaker, “Captain, Captain,” and after the sounds of the footsteps rushing away from the lane way the total silence had come back again.

State Massacre

For next few seconds nothing could be heard in the ice-cold silence. But it didn’t take long at all. We heard the deeply disturbing sounds of the crowd suddenly collapsing and running away as the dang-dang sounds of two rifle shots came out first. The very long bursts of prolonged automatic gun-shots followed. From where we were we could clearly hear the loud cries and deep screams of the people getting killed by the advancing troops.

The troops had rapidly tightened their constricting hold of the besieged crowd by shooting anyone on the streets and quickly advancing their attacking lines inward towards the City Hall where the epicenter of the huge protesting crowd was. Army had even issued hundreds of 12 gauge shot guns to the shooting troops on the frontlines to enhance the effectiveness of close-range killings. Conservative estimates put the death toll at 10,000 at least.

Even though we all sat together really close and holding each other’s hands tight in the darkness our bodies were shaking with sadness and surprise and fright and anger altogether. Bespectacled big brother said in a crying voice, “Remember today and this time, and never ever forget this.” The time was 15 minutes before 12 O’clock on my watch.

11:45 in the night of August 8, 1988.

Amidst the loud gunfire were the cries and screams and begging of people on the open streets to the soldiers not to shoot at them. The dark screams of the hapless people brutally slaughtered in the dark 8888 night might be like the boiling of hot oil in the cauldrons of the Great Hell we Buddhists believe in. I’d never heard such horrible deep screams ever before in my young life and I still believed I would never hear them again in the future.

I was so angry I had frightening goose bumps all over and the shivering made the hair stood on end. My whole body was uncontrollably shaking as I tried to control my busting anger. I felt like letting my mind go and break some thing violently there. 

After few hours of shooting we started hearing the rushing in of many trucks on the streets and later the watery splashing sounds of many fire-engines cleaning the roads with their fire-hoses. Then we heard the same many trucks driving fast passed the embassy towards the naval wharves of Yangon. We could clearly hear the desperate Please help us, they are taking us away, they are killing us pleas and the deep screams of the wounded from the passing trucks. And all of us there cried.

As their usual practice to hide the mass slaughter the Army immediately sent in the sand-filled open trucks to remove the dead and dying from the scene. The bodies some of which were still-alive were then taken to the sand-filled naval barges waiting at the Yangon Naval Base and then dumped at the crocodile-infested waters where the Yangon River meets the sea. The Army also used the fire-engines to clean the scene of massacre spotless within few hours to remove all the traces of mass slaughter.

Finally the noises had slowly died down and the previous Army Captain came back again with a real loud speaker this time. “People still in the Embassy’s backyard, come out and go back to your homes peacefully. Otherwise we will take appropriate actions according to the law,” he started shouting at us again.

Only then a window on the Embassy’s second floor was opened and a hand came out and spotting us on the ground with a torch light as if we were being counted from above. One man in a torn shirt from our group was frightened and he rushed towards the steel gate and tried to open the door from inside.

But I and the bespectacled big brother rushed in and stopped him from opening the door. After that we just blocked the door with our backs and told every one in the backyard to back down and not to come near us but the two young girls were so scared they just came up and stayed with us by the gate.

Later the people from the Embassy’s second floor dropped down water and soft drinks and cakes and bread for us. But I didn’t touch the food as I didn’t feel like eating or drinking at all. Only fear and anger occupied my mind and I was also thinking about the sad facts that the people from the huge crowd in front of the Town Hall were brutally killed by the countless bursts of automatic gun fires. Till the morning arrived most of us kept on crying at the same time saying repeatedly that one gun shot could hit so many people in the crowd.

At about 6:30 we opened the door for the people wanting to go home. We asked them to yell back at us if nothing dangerous outside but most just silently disappeared except for the four who came back to the gate and shouted there was nothing outside. But we didn’t believe them and still we didn’t dare to go out. Finally only six including me left in the Embassy’s backyard. Day was quickly breaking and we could see each other’s faces clearly.

Except for the big brother with glasses the rest were all teenagers 15 or 16 year old. Then we held each other’s hands tight and agreed to leave the embassy compound. On the streets everything appeared normal like nothing serious had happened last night. Thoroughly washed asphalted streets were shinny black and not a piece of rubbish on them. Only then I began to know the brutal characteristic of the military government. 
  
I had the complete confidence to say that hundreds and hundreds of people died there that night by the evidence of me actually hearing myself the long bursts of continuous gunshots from the massive firing into the huge crowd. I could confidently claim that my statement is true. The bespectacled big brother and two young school girls are still alive today and they will be my witnesses.

Mourning for the Lost Souls

What I wrote was what happened exactly on my first day of the 8-8-88 Uprising. I will never forget that till the day I die. I will mourn for the fallen and I will not let them go from the purgatory of my mind till this military dictatorship is removed. This is my promise to the people who lost their lives in fighting for what they really desired but never achieved in their lifetimes. I believed that the fallen will also fight the dictators with their tortured souls to the end.

I will be a witness in a people’s court when the time comes to prosecute the mass murderers of Myanmar Army for the 8-8-88 midnight slaughter of thousands of people in Yangon. For cruelly firing into the unarmed crowd in front of the Yangon City Hall exactly at 11:45 in the night of 8 August 1988 in the darkness after cutting the power to the city. The Embassy’s CCTV camera records will prove our refuge that night in the backyard of American Embassy on the middle of Merchant Street.

Every anniversary of 8-8-88 Uprising has been a difficult day for me as I felt like drowning as if my insides were depressed to such extent that I couldn’t breath no more. On every August 8 I always felt like I would never be in peace again. But I am not praying for the fallen yet. Only when the military is put on a trial and only after the huge blood debt is repaid I will pray for the souls of all the fallen to rest in peace.

My head bowed down with deep sorrow I salute the fallen monks, men and women, and the students who have sacrificed their lives in their fight for democracy in Myanmar.

Once Upon A Time In Myanmar (1)

General Ne Win (1911-2002).

Practicing politics in Myanmar(Burma) is an extremely high risk profession. A politician in dictatorial Myanmar could be arrested any time and during the long BSPP (Myanmar (Burma) Socialist Program Party) rule it could be outright dangerous for a politician to be arrested. Since I was very young I’d heard the tragic stories of many jailed politicians whose lives were forever destroyed. 

I often witnessed the MIS men in a Mazda E2000 mini-truck regularly taking away that old red-flag Communist Yee Mhaing (a) Nyo Mhaing whenever the dates of politically significant events from past approached. Sometimes he came back in few days but sometimes it could take months or even years. His life was so unstable he didn’t have a job. He couldn’t even work as an itinerant laborer and I sometimes felt really bad seeing him wandering from one teashop to another teashop.

I’d also seen mildly-mad Tin Aung Htun who used to live near my great uncle’s house when I was a young boy. He was arrested and tortured by Ne Win’s Government for his involvement in 1974 U Thant Uprising. Since then he would avoid a crowd. Whenever he saw a group of students in school uniform he became really scared and always tried to hide. Even though some students in our neighborhood laughed at his habit of running away and hiding inside the house whenever someone teasingly said to him that the students were coming I always wondered why did he become like that.

But one day I who had seen the ruined lives of two politicians first hand got a chance to read rare political literature. One of my friends exchanged my guitar for the big pine box full of books left by his recently deceased grandfather. Among the rare old books were two books titled “The Last Days of Thakhin Than Htun” one published by Mya-yar-bin Books and other one by the ruling BSPP. I read two books together and discovered that those two books with same title were completely different.

U Nu (1907-1995).

Since then I’d become familiar with the political literature. I began to know the real solid facts about the Thakhins, AFPFL, Communist Party, Thakhin Kodaw Mhaiang, etc, which were nothing like what we have been taught as the official History in our schools. These true historical facts about our Myanmar after Independence had basically changed me significantly.

Very soon I knew a lot such as what is BSPP, who really is Dictator Ne Win, who is U Nu, etc. Also from that time I began to dislike BSPP and Ne Win. I also knew more about 1974 U Thant Uprising where many university students were killed by the Army.

Then 1988 came. We used to chat a lot about March Incident when RIT student Phone Maw was killed by the police. One female teacher who knew I was always talking eagerly about politics even paid a visit to our usual hang-out Thain-koe-zae teashop and warned me not to stay at home and to hide. Only then I felt really worried about myself getting arrested.

But on the other hand I was childishly happy that the much-talk-about 8-8-88 General Strike would happen and probably bring the downfall of Ne Win’s BSPP government. I was only 16 back then.

I was even afraid that the Strikes wouldn’t happen. But if there would be an uprising because of the strikes I wanted it to be successful. Only then I wouldn’t be arrested I guessed. Thus I decided to participate in the coming General Strike. I wouldn’t run away I decided.

Even though I was worrying for myself because of that teacher’s warning, actually I didn’t really do much politically before.  Once I merely stood and watched the protesters burning a government Mazdajeep vehicle from the Tourist Myanmar by the Sule Pagoda.

And in last March when we heard about the student strike in the Yangon University I went there with two friends to watch. But we turned back after my friends chickened out and wanted to go back home. Even if we went into the Yangon University we wouldn’t see a thing as the actual student strike was in the Yangon Institute of Technology. But because of my two friends telling others about our misadventure I became well known among our friends as someone who had connections with the student strikes. 

In reality I had no political colors and no body had ever recruited me and no UG (Underground movement of a political organization) had ever encouraged me. I was just a politically curious boy and that nasty challenge of Dictator Ne Win on the State-owned TV daring the people to protest against his Socialist Government made me participate in the Uprising.

Historic Day 8-8-88

The morning of 8 August 1988.  

The Kyauktadar Township where I lived then was right in the middle of Yangon and that morning there were no shops opened in the nearby 38^th Street Market but few street vendors.  Most of the shops on the  Anawrahtar Road (Frazer Road) were shut and all the gold shops were closed too. People were expecting a very large crowd of striking protesters coming into the city.

Every body was talking about the strikes all over Yangon and the various crowds marching towards city. Also the rumors of the arrival in Yangon of feared Chin troops with red scarves around their necks were breaking out everywhere. People were even saying that the Chins were gonna really shoot the protesters on the streets this time as Dictator Ne Win had threatened on the Government TV.

While we were waiting the marching strikers came into the city as expected. It was a huge crowd and by that afternoon the whole army of protesters coming into the city had turned back from the Pansodan Street and gathered in front of the City Hall. I and a few friends wanted to join the demonstrations but we managed to do only just getting in and out of the crowd.

Almost everyone covered their faces with pieces of clothing or handkerchiefs to hide their identity from the government agents taking secret photos. In my pocket I had a large handkerchief I prepared for this occasion yesterday in case I needed. By six o’clock the massive crowd was so incredibly huge anyone could have hard time getting through.

While I was standing at the corner of 37^th Street and Maha Bandoola Road and watching the crowd a few with their faces covered and their bags slung across their shoulders came into the street and asked for packed-lunch donations as we had expected.  The overwhelming support from people of our street was incredible.

Every apartment block turned off the stairs-lights and the residents waited downstairs at the stairs and called out to the collectors and gave than already made packed-lunches. Every five or 6 stair cases was enough to fill their large basket with packed-meals. I was first watching the collectors carrying the heavy basket and suddenly decided to help them and so I willingly ended up carrying their basket laden with packed-meals.

I and one other carried the huge basket filled with packed-meals together back towards the Town Hall and people in the crowd along the way gave us way and also cheered us. Their cheers made me fresh again even though our shirts were drown with our own sweat from hard work. One of my first cousins joined me helping the supply troops for the protesters but later his father my uncle followed us and hit him on the head and took him home.

He told me to come back home with them but I just shook my head. I used to be afraid of that violent uncle but that night he left me alone when I stared back at him with my eyes just above the handkerchief mask covering half my face. I was really enthusiastic about the protest that night.

Colonial-era Yangon City Hall.

Not only the packed-meals the people had dropped many cases of Cream Soda and Orange Juice bottles from Dagon Soft Drinks Factory as Myanmar then didn’t have bottled water like now. There were piles of cakes, breads, and buns dropped there by people in Mazda B360 and B600 vehicles. I had never seen such expensive donation of food generously by the people of Yangon before.

We placed all these donated food at two places. One place was on the median strip of Maha Bandoola Road right in front of the City Hall and other was by the barbed-wire barricades on the corner of Barr Street and Maha Bandoola Road. We put the food packages and soft drink cases there right by the City Hall so that it will become a barrier if the soldiers already inside the City Hall rushed out and attacked and tried to arrest the protesters.

Never in my mind did a thought occur then that those soldiers would later brutally fire at the massive crowd gathering there. I was utterly wrong.

Encircled by the Troops

At nine in the night the ambulances inside the City Hall compound suddenly left and many Hino TE 21 trucks from the RTC (Road Transport Corporation) carrying more troops arrived. The army officers on the loud-speakers were now shouting at the crowd to disperse and not to wave the union flags any more. Behind the gates and the low fences of the Town Hall were the Chin Troops with their signature red scarves proudly around their necks.

Map of Central Yangon.

Instead of their usual jungle hats they were now wearing the steel army helmets. Their faces were extremely tense while their automatic G3 rifles were readily poining at the crowd. In the adjacent Barr Street were two rows of Chin soldiers one row on their kneels and one behind standing with all their G3 rifles aiming at the crowd as if they were in a target practice.

They were from the 22^nd Light Infantry Division. That LID 22 would later become notorious as the Army Division that brutally slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of its own people.

People were shouting the political slogans at the top of their voices and many were loudly singing the national anthem. The bespectacled man carrying the big basket together with me kept on reminding me to stay with him all the time. He was much older than me and he was apparently so worried that I a younger boy could get lost easily in the crowd in such a possibly dangerous situation. Also with us were two young girls still in the school uniforms of white blouse and green sarong.

The scary rumors about the arrival of more army troops in the vicinity had gradually forced most spectators to flee back home. Only now I wondered the striking protesters should have retreated from that confined space too like the others. Back then I didn’t think of the real possibility that the leaderless demonstrating crowd was deliberately kept there by the BSPP agents to be easily slaughtered by the Government troops.

Those agents were the men telling the crowd the encouraging news loud and clear then. They were telling them that the State Council meeting had already started, BSPP collapse was imminent, democracy was near, and the Army was going to join us, etc, etc. Because of them the protesting crowd wouldn’t disperse till it was too late.

By then the army had blocked Maha Bandoola Road at both Pansodan Street and Sule Pagoda Road intersections. Sule Pagoda Road and Merchant Street were also closed off. We could see the troops now barricading the streets at Tourist Myanmar office and Shamee Confectionary   on the intersection of Maha Bandoola Road and Sule Pagoda Road. The huge crowd in front of the Yangon City Hall was now completely encircled by the armed troops from all four directions.

(direct translation of Ye Min Tun’s ‘Four 8 Uprising and Me’)

The Last Speech of General Aung San (1947 July 13)

This Speech is the last of Our Father.You want to look complete this movie.Please download under the list.

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8

Two Myanmar Doctors,What Myanmar NIB(National intelligence Bureau) did to them?

General Khin Nyunt (1988)

During the failed 8-8-88 Uprising in Myanmar(Burma) there was a photo of two young doctors carrying a fatally-wounded schoolgirl taken right in front of the Yangon general Hospital.

The whole of that day the heavily-armed soldiers of brutal Myanmar army had been indiscriminately shooting the unarmed civilian protesters all over Yangon and the young schoolgirl was just one of many thousands casualties on the streets of Yangon.

Almost everybody in Myanmar and probably the whole wide world had seen that iconic photo but no one really knows who they were. And now I would like to tell the story of that picture taken on 18 September 1988 the infamous day the army violently took over Myanmar from the previous military-controlled Socialist government.

In the photo the student girl still in her school uniform of white blouse and green sarong covered in blood from her fatal gunshot wounds was carried away from the site of shootings by two men who apparently were doctors as they were in their duty-coats and their stethoscopes still dangling from their necks.

Everyone who saw that photo instantly got emotionally upset and angry by the heartbreaking display of hell in Myanmar and the futile struggle of Myanmar people. But I honestly believe no one really knows what really happened to those two doctors later. And this is the sad story of them two doctors as I’d known both of them well.

The one holding the upper torso of the wounded girl was Dr. Min Thein and the one holding her legs was Dr. Saw Lwin. Both were extremely smart and academically excellent students from the Rangoon Institute of Medicine (IM-1) before they became practicing doctors at the RGH.

Dr. Saw Lwin was the best student in the whole Thin-gan-gyun Township when he passed his nationwide matriculation and got into the medicine. His elder sister was also a medical doctor.

Dr. Min Thein was also a top student when he was studying medicine in the university. His brother Win Thein is also a medical doctor and their father was a senior public servant as the high-ranking director of a government department.

Dr. Min Thein’s Flight

After the military coup that day Dr. Min Thein fled from the chasing MIS (Military Intelligence Service) and took to the jungle together with many thousands of 8-8-88 students.

He was serving as a medical doctor for the students’ army ABSDF (All Burma(Myanmar) Students’ Democratic Front) on the Thai border when he was sent back to Yangon on a clandestine duty. During his stay in Rangoon there was a much publicized press conference given by MIS General Khin Nyunt.

Khin Nyunt was basically giving the students who took the jungle and then came back home a general pardon by inviting them to report to the local authorities as his military government wouldn’t be taking any adverse actions against them.

Dr Min Thein’s father the loyal government official was concerned and thus he himself reported his son to the local military division. Only then Dr. Min Thein admitted to his close friend Dr. Saw Lwin that he was on UG (Underground) duty from ABSDF.

But then was too late as next day the Military Intelligence agents took him in for interrogation. He was detained for a while and later returned to his parents only after about a week in a MIS detention center.

By then he was seriously sick. All his limbs were dangerously swollen and he couldn’t urinate no more. So Dr. Win Thein (Dr. Min Thein’s brother) called Dr. Saw Lwin to let him know about Dr. Min Thein’s deteriorating situation.

Once he saw his friend Dr. Min Thein told him that his MIS interrogators had given him an injection without saying what injection. What was happening to him now must be because of that injection. He told him that his whole stomach was really tight and he had problems with breathing.

While Dr. Saw Lwin and Dr. Win Thein were trying to get Dr. Min Thein admitted to the Rangoon General Hospital the same MIS agents had physically stopped them and told them that he was allowed to admit only to the BMH (Base Military Hospital) in Mingaladon, not into a civilian hospital.

Dr. Min Thein just simply refused to go into a military hospital and ended up not in a hospital but at home. Dr. Saw Lwin and Dr. Win Thein tried to treat him at home as best as they could.

Without a proper medical treatment at a hospital Dr. Min Thein passed away next day.

Dr. Min Thein’s Autopsy

Right after his death Dr. Saw Lwin and Dr. Win Thein took his body to the RGH morgue and did an autopsy together with one of their teachers a medical professor from the Institute of Medicine.

The obvious cause of death was the horribly-shrunken kidneys caused by the unknown injection administered by the MIS agents during his detention. They, the MIS and General Khin Nyunt(Chief commender of NIB), did kill poor Dr. Min Thein, period.

Just because he was in that iconic photo? Just because he as a good-hearted doctor tried to save the life of a young wounded schoolgirl? They killed him out of spite for just nothing!

Dr. Saw Lwin’s Flight

Once MIS knew the unauthorized autopsy on Dr. Min Thein remains they forced the professor to sign a gag order not to say a thing about the autopsy report and they also tried to arrest Dr. Saw Lwin.

So he had to flee and hide in some rural hideout. Before his flight to safety he was running a clinic in a Yangon’s destitute satellite township. Some days he was not only treating the poors free but also providing them with free medicines.

I was then working with him in his clinic. I had witnessed his good deeds with my own eyes. He once took care of a poor cancer patient at his own expenses and didn’t even ask a single kyat from the poor patient.

Because the MIS couldn’t catch him the government forced Dr. Saw Lwin’s father to retire from his govern job. And the old man died from a heart attack in 1994. Only then Dr Saw Lwin came back to Yangon.

By then he innocently and truly thought that the MIS had forgotten all about him and the cursed photo as nothing had happened to him initially. So he applied for a job working for the government hospitals. He finally got a job as a doctor in a small village-group hospital in Bogalay Township of the Irrawaddy Division.

Dr. Saw Lwin’s Recurring Troubles

At the beginning of his stay in Bogalay Township he was left alone by the local MIS agents for a while. Only weeks later they started troubling him by visiting him and closely watching him.

By 1995 the MIS visits for interrogations were getting more frequent and becoming quite disturbing for him. Finally he couldn’t take it no more so he came up to Yangon to get help from Daw Aung Sun Su Kyi and her NLD (National League for Democracy) while she was temporarily released from her on and off long term house arrest.

But he didn’t manage to see her and eventually he did come back to Bogalay Town. Once he got back home he was summoned to the Township Administrative Office by the Secretary of the Township Law and Order Restoration Council (the township level SLORC). He ended up being grilled the whole day by three MIS agents in the office.

That evening Dr. Saw Lwin came back home apparently depressed. According to his housemates he was noticeably disturbed after that day. He wouldn’t say a word to them and whenever they tried to ask what was bothering him he would just shut up or change the topic. They also understood that he didn’t want the same fate like his had fallen upon them by telling them his troubles.

That day he took a long leave without pay from the hospital and started packing his belongings. Next two whole days he wouldn’t come out of his room and everything inside was quiet and not a single movement was heard.

His housemates were so worried and concerned they finally broke his door down and found him hanging from a rafter. MIS ruthless hounding was so unbearable he had given up hope and finally committed a suicide. 

I felt really sad for my Doctor Saw Lwin’s untimely death. He was a truly decent man.

Fallen Stars of Myanmar

Stars have their own lights. Their rightful place is far high up in the open sky. In a clear night we can see them flashing like diamonds in the sky.

General Khin Nyunt (2012)

Our youths are like the stars. They have their own qualities like starlight. They are smart and clever. They have high moral values. And they are decent human beings.

But unfortunately many of them are falling untimely like some old burnout stars. Thus I would like to call our Myanmar the country of falling stars.

Stars are falling in our Myanmar. Who are responsible for them falling down so young? How painful are the parents’ deep sufferings from the early deaths of their dearest sons and daughters? How many more of our precious youths are to be lost?

Dedicated to the fallen heroes of Myanmar! May their souls rest in peace?