Today, 18th July 2006, we read with disappointment the results of capitulating to the enemy – subjugation and humiliation. Perhaps we didn’t expect anything else. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam would parade captured US pilots and soldiers caged on the back of trucks, through the streets of Hanoi as an exercise in defiance and propaganda. Col.Moengzuen has been paraded for much the same reasons in a sadistically inhumane press conference in at Thirihantha hall in Laikha, Shan State.

Col.Moengzuen and several of his men, festooned with welcoming garlands, was paraded before the assembly of SPDC officials, domestic and foreign diplomats and journalists, USDA, Women’s Affairs Organization, Maternal and Child Welfare Association, War Veterans Organization and other social organizations and local national races totalling over 1500. The press conference was stage managed by Chairman of SPDC Information Committee Minister for Information Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan. 

I suspected that the SPDC had been particularly evil in their actions recently, as the previous day’s New Light of Myanmar had run front page articles of Than Shwe planting trees at NayPyiTaw and numerous SPDC officers making obeisance and merit by donations to hsayadaws and monasteries. I doubt that many of them will gain any enough merit through such public relations exercises – they will all need to spend the rest of this life and many more to come to purify their negatives actions during this life – and they will need the pure motivation and moral discipline that befits such merit making activities. 

After the Minister for Lies gave an account of the ‘return to the legal fold’, Col.Moengzuen had the opportunity to give his account of the events. Now we understand why Col.Moengzuen had been allowed to keep his arms and given a place to live. His statement could have been written from the SPDC manual of propaganda from 1988/89 when Khin Nyunt started ceasefire agreements to give the SPDC space to consolidate its power. 

Col.Moengzuen was asked to mouth the rabid allegations against Sao Yawd Serk and the Shan State Army – South that we have heard on numerous occasions regarding drugs – cultivation and trafficking – and terrorism – burning villages and raping women – that we know are committed by the SPDC and their allies. It is not for peaceful ‘regional development’ that the USA and Thailand want to extradite the notorious drug trafficker Wei Hsueh-kang – Wei and the UWSA's 171st division operate the world’s largest international drugs business with impunity in Shan State, under the patronage of the SPDC as a ‘ceasefire’ group, and have recently been undertaking joint operations with the SPDC’s tatmadaw in attacks on the SSA-S at Loi Taileng. The SSA-S, with their stated commitment to combating the illicit drugs business, had been preventing Wei and his allies from making another drugs run into Thailand.

Regarding acts of terrorism, the world and his dog have seen the results of the tatmadaw offensive against the Karen people; photographic and video evidence and heard compelling personal testimony of the village-burning, land-mines, rape of indigenous ethnic women, refugees fleeing to the Thai border, forced re-settlement and forced labour, and myriad other human rights abuses committed by the ‘tatmadaw’. The army that should be protecting the people of the country are the ones committing the acts of terrorism. 

As for the false personal accusations against Sao Yawd Serk, they are damningly laughable, if it weren’t for appearing on television and newspaper reports as ‘truth’. In my opinion, Sao Yawd Serk is a committed, courageous leader leading a light of hope for the people of Shan State, and does not deserve this personal ‘gutter-press’ trash. The absurdity and dismissively contemptible nature of these allegations reflects on the devious and dog-like minds of those that wrote them – someone, somewhere in the depths of the ‘Ministry of Truth’ putting together a cohesive smear campaign at the behest of the Than Shwe and the SPDC. And at the last, they couldn’t restrain themselves from adding the bogus accusation of links between SSA-S and the NLD - just in time to justify more SPDC brutality and misinformation on Martyr’s day. 

As for the overall picture, we heard exactly the same story in precise detail in the newspaper and the MRTV television report. This was not the words or decision of an individual, but the co-ordinated mandate from on high – speak only one ‘truth’, and nothing else. Col.Moengzuen was not given any choice about what he could say. It was all written for him over the last few months that he has been negotiating with the SPDC. 

Col.Moengzuen will regret the day that he took the SPDC’s offer – we can only presume that he had the choice – the death penalty for trumped up charges for crimes he didn’t commit, like his former comrades-in-arms Sao Khun Kyaw – or a life of peace in rural Shan State in exchange for his performance at the press conference. When he reflects on what he has done, I hope that he can stop and think – before he is asked to “to take part in the fight against drugs, to stamp out and crush the destructive elements, to jointly prevent the external dangers and to fully engage in regional development tasks”.

Quotations
Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation directly aimed at influencing the opinions of people, rather than impartially providing information. …disseminating false or misleading information in favour of a certain cause. Strictly speaking, a message does not have to be untrue to qualify as propaganda, but it may omit so many pertinent truths that it becomes highly misleading.
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

Some of the most effective propaganda techniques work by misdirecting or distracting the public's finite attention away from important issues. It's important to read between the lines of the news and see what isn't being reported, or what is reported once, quietly, and not followed up. In an age of information overload, distraction techniques can as effective as active propaganda. One way to test for distraction is to look for items that appear repeatedly in foreign press (from neutral and hostile countries) and that don't appear in your own. But beware of deliberately placed lies that are repeated with the hope that people will believe it if it is repeated often enough.
Center for Media and Democracy / SourceWatch
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Propaganda

On the political front, Yawd Serk wants the international community to understand the depth, complexity and significance of the plight of ethnic groups within Burma and to press the generals to grant autonomy to the ethnics. Not only the Karen are suffering under brutal Burma Army repression, he points out. The situation is similar in Shan State. People are suffering and dying every day in our areas as well.
On Patrol with the Shan State Army
Michael Black and Roland Fields. The Irrawaddy, July 2006
http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=5947&print=yes&c=e

References

New Light of Myanmar, 18th July 2006
http://www.myanmardigest.com/eng_md/July18.html

MRTV3
http://www.mrtv3.net.mm/open2/180706iss.html

Acronyms

UWSA United Wa State Army
USDA Union Solidarity and Development Association (SPDC’s thug organisation)