AN ORDER TO SHOOT EVERY MAN IN UNIFORM ( Kao-Wao ) January 16, 2003

AN ORDER TO SHOOT EVERY MAN IN UNIFORM

(Based on a report of IMNA and Kao-Wao, January 16, 2003)

The officer of Burmese Army in southern Ye township of Mon State ordered his troops to shoot down anyone who appears in an army uniform during its offensive, according to local source.

On December 29, 2002, the Infantry Battalion No. 61 led by Captain Tin Aung Khaing arrested two village headmen at the coffee shop of Sakhom village for wearing army uniform shirts. Nai Kyaw and Nai Own Myint were accused of being insurgents for wearing rebel-like shirts and arrested; the soldiers covered their faces, tortured and beat them during interrogation. After severely beating the villagers, the army understood that two men were innocent.

Shortly after, Captain Tin Aung Khaing barked out orders to the local people in southern Ye township that they were not allowed to wear army uniform shirts and would be shot and killed on site if they do so, no questions asked.

The witness said two men were later sent to Ye army prison as punishment and released after their families paid the Commander 100,000 Kyat for each. Both men needed immediate treatment in the hospital because of the pain and injuries inflicted by the torture both in the village and in the army lock-up.

Local sources reported that the Burmese Army LIB No. 273, 280, 31 and 61 have launched an offensive to wipe out Mon armed groups in the last three months. The standard operating procedure of the Burmese army is to make civilians targets in their war against the opposition groups and gun down indiscriminately villagers who happen to be working out in the open.

As in all military dictatorships, suppressing insurgent groups involves oppressive action against the civilian base, through depopulation measures, by diluting their ethnic homogeneity, land confiscation, and resettlement areas to act as buffers against perceived enemy forces. All of these measures are taking place in Monland and throughout Burma in the ethnic areas.