The recent news articles reveal that the SPDC will stop at nothing to torture and kill Shan people. As the result of the war the SPDC waged against the Shan State Army, the Shan civilians are undergoing inhumane war crimes perpetrated by the SPDC toward them.

The SPDC has accused the Shan State Army of being terrorists. The SSA are not terrorists, they are fighting for justice, autonomy and human rights for the Shans. They are doing the best they can to protect the innocent Shan villagers, from the brutal and inhumane acts of crimes perpetrated toward them by the Burmese Army.

By using violence for political purposes: using a reign of terror over Shan people, the SPDC are the ones who are using the tactics of terrorism toward the Shans.
The SPDC arrested the Shan’s rightful leaders and gave them inhumanely long jail sentences for working to achieve fairness and justice for the Shan people. By doing so, the SPDC destroyed their own chances of gaining any respect or loyalty from the Shans.

The SPDC are behaving like genocidal fascist maniacs separating people because of their race and heritage. The SPDC are tyrants behaving in the same way as the Nazis persecuting the Jews, and the same way as the extremist Hutu militia groups in Rwanda, who slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

After World War II the Nazis were prosecuted for war crimes against humanity, and the extremist Hutu leaders are being sought and prosecuted by the present Rwandan government and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. While prevention of such atrocities would be best, prosecution for such events does bring some degree of justice to the perpetrators. The SPDC leaders can expect nothing less.

The brutality, racism, menace and hatred perpetrated toward Shan people, is extremely beyond all concept of humanity and reason, and this attitude has to stop.

Unless the SPDC change their attitude toward the Shan people, and stop all persecutions toward them, the Shans will ensure that justice will be done for their people, and they will persist until freedom from SPDC is achieved for all Shans in Burma.

The Shans as a global family will not, and should not tolerate such despicable treatment on our people. Our people do not deserve this.

The SPDC do not deserve our cooperation or tolerance unless they change their attitude and behaviour toward the Shans. They have proved themselves to be worthy of nothing less than our contempt and disgust.

We Shans will not give up our fight to gain autonomy and the right for our people to live peacefully with our own rightful Shan leaders.

2 May

Photo: S.H.A.N.
Math Myint Than

Killing them softly & painfully: Another Burmese political prisoner dies in detention

May 03, 2006 (DVB) - Myint Than, one of the Shan leaders who have been imprisoned in the same case as Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD) chairman Khun Htun Oo, had died at the Thandwe (Sandoway) hospital on 2 May.
56-year old Myint Than who had been detained at Thandwe Jail in Burma’s western Arakan State was suffering from severe stroke and pains in his chest when he was hospitalised, and he died at around 8pm local time while receiving treatments for his illness.

Myint Than was arrested on the 9th of February 2005 by the ruling military government’s agents and he was sentenced to 79 years in jail under several charges including forming a Shan advisory group and insurrection. The health condition of Myint Than which was always good prior to his arrest, deteriorated when he was transferred to Thandwe Jail.

Aung Thein also added that he is very concerned for the health conditions of other detained old Shan leaders such as Htun Oo who is currently detained at Puta-O, SNLD secretary Sai Nyunt Lwin at Kalemyo Jail, Sai Hla Uang at Kyaukphyu Jail and Shan State National Army’s patron Gen Hso Ten at Khamti, and other younger Shan prisoners.
DVB

Junta army takes credit for not killing victims
Reporter: Sein Kyi

A Burma Army column, after subjecting 6 villagers to hours of physical torture, had released them saying they were lucky they were not Shans, according to new refugee arrivals at the border:

Upon their release on the next day, the column commander was said to have told them, "Only two things have saved you from death:

• One, you speak Burmese
• Two, you are PaO, not Shans. Had you been Shans, you wouldn't have come out of this alive."

"I don’t know whether I should be angry with the Burmese (army) for abusing us," a bloody survivor was overheard saying, "or be grateful to them they didn't kill us."

Critics say the Burma Army is deliberately applying a divide-and-rule policy between the Shans and the non-Shans of Shan State.
www.shanland.org

Junta army looks at gift horses in the mouth A homely girl, who was among the 7 women forced to "comfort" a 60-men patrol from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 514 based in Mongkerng, a township 148 miles northeast of the state capital of Taunggyi, was beaten to death by angry soldiers last month, according to sources coming to the border.

Sources, who were reluctant to identify the girl, a native of Look-kang village, Zonglao village tract, west of the Loizang range and near the headwaters of the Namteng, said the soldiers left her battered remains outside the village. The incident took place on 3 April 2006.
www.shanland.org