Minister of Propaganda, Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan held one of his infamous press conferences on 26 April 2006, following the burning of a large quantity of narcotics and amphetamine tablets seized over the last few months. The minister took the opportunity to issue a mad tirade against the Shan State Army and the National League for Democracy.

The minister said that the “internal and external terrorist groups are unscrupulously and cruelly committing drug trafficking, sabotage acts, ethnic cleansing, rapes, collecting extortion money, setting villages on fire and recruiting child soldiers while preaching political issues.” However, as we all know, those perpetrating these crimes against humanity are the forces of the SPDC themselves.

I was intrigued as to who the minister was talking. The SPDC officials will have heard it all before; do they believe it? Certainly not the minions who made it all up in the ministry under instruction from Brig. Gen. Kyaw Hsan. The people of Burma are too wise and have heard this stream of stupid lies since 1962 to be taken in by it. The press correspondents no doubt take the press release back to base and write up what? The press in Burma has been told what to say and would be imprisoned for telling the truth. The foreign press don’t believe a word of it. The free press report it as propaganda.

No evidence for any of the allegations was presented, except the word of the SPDC. As no one trusts the SPDC or anything they say, the ‘evidence’ is meaningless. Those of us who can read a free press and form a balanced opinion about news reports have long realised that whatever the SPDC say, the opposite is the truth.

So the truth as we know it is that a large proportion of the population of Burma still favour a handover of government to the members of parliament elected in 1990, and that the National League for Democracy is still a potent political force in Burma. If it weren’t, then the minister would not have spent so much time expressing his views. It is evident that the SPDC are becoming increasingly frustrated with the people of Burma for not believing the lies and fabrications of fantasy world that the SPDC wishes. It also shows that the SPDC has real concerns about its ability to remain in control and needs to publish this vile rhetoric at regular intervals to convince themselves that they can remain in power. The US government rightly condemned the statement and called on the SPDC to hold meaningful dialogue with the NLD and other pro-democracy organisations, as well as calling for the release of all political prisoners.

Regarding the SSA(S), the long list of incidents is only testimony to the crimes that the SPDC have committed. In all of the (free) press reports that I have seen of events in Burma, not one of them lays the blame for such crimes with the SSA(S). All of the crimes have been perpetrated by the SPDC, and the free press outside Burma reports these acts as crimes committed by the SPDC. It is only in Burma where the press must print the lies that the SPDC speak that the incidents are reported (if they ever are reported) as being the act of an insurgent group. It is difficult to state or to claim that any armed group operating in Burma is a terrorist organisation, as Burma does not have a legitimate government, against which acts of terrorism can be committed. The SPDC is not a legitimate government, having hijacked a democratically elected government, and then undertaken a military coup against itself! None of the armed groups have undertaken military acts against civilian targets, as the SPDC does on a daily basis.

The only recent news that has been reported on the actions of the SSA(S) regards their fight against the drug-trafficking activities that the pro-SPDC militia groups conduct near the SSA area of operations. The SSA(S), the KNU and other armed groups operating in Burma are often the only anti-terrorist organisations that Burma has. These small bands of brave warriors dedicate their lives to protecting civilians from the terrible human rights abuses and sadistic excesses of the SPDC.

So who is the minister talking to? We can only speculate that the rhetoric that Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan comes out with is like that from all other SPDC officials - that of talking himself into a promotion, and keeping in favour with the ‘old man’. The only people listening and giving praise are the SPDC themselves – the rest of the world treats it for what it is – lies, damn lies and SPDC Press Conferences.

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Quotations
The junta certainly knows violence when it sees it. There is evidence that backs up claims by the resistance forces that the army has uprooted at least 11,000 villagers, burning their homes to force them to flee. The 140,000 refugees in nine camps on Thai territory speak eloquently to the support and credibility that Burmese give to their government.
Bangkok Post, Editorial, Junta failing reality test.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/

The term terrorism is used to refer to acts of violence, or the threat of violence carried out for political motives by organisations/individuals who are not recognised as organs of the legitimate state within a given territory nor officially at war with that territory.
en.Wikipedia.org

Propaganda is a mighty weapon in war. In this case its aim is usually to dehumanize the enemy and to create hatred against a special group. The technique is to create a false image in the mind. This can be done by using special words, special avoidance of words or by saying that the enemy is responsible for certain things he never did. In every propaganda war two things are needed: Injustice and Faint. The faint or the injustice may be fictitious or may be based on facts, the aim is always to create hate. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Propaganda