Burma : Christie Island

Wikimapia - Let's describe the whole world!



New Army Chief Supported Massacre
KO HTWE
Thursday, September 2, 2010

Lt-Gen Myint Aung, the army's adjutant general, who has reportedly been appointed as the future commander-in-chief in the recent reshuffle, supported the decision to kill 81 innocent civilians on Christie Island near Thai territorial waters, according to Aung Lynn Htut, a former military intelligence officer and Charge d’ Affaires in Washington DC.

https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Lt-Gen Myint Aung, the newly appointed commander-in-chief.
(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, Aung Lynn Htut, who was a military intelligence officer with the joint force involved in the operation, said: “After [then Commodore and later Vice Admiral] Kyi Min, received the order [to kill the villagers], he said he thought [Vice Snr Gen] Maung Aye might have given the order when he was drunk and he would confirm it the next morning.""When Kyi Min discussed the order with [Lt-Gen] Myint Swe and [Lt-Gen] Myint Aung, Myint Swe said nothing but Myint Aung supported the decision to kill the victims, saying it was an order and they should just obey it without bothering to confirm it," he said.

Myint Aung was then serving as Brig Gen Commander of No (13) Military Operation Command in Bok Pyin in Tanintharyi Division.

In April 1998, after receiving reports about arms smugglers from the Indian military, a joint Burmese air, navy and army operation took place on Christie Island.

59 people from nearby villages including children, newly-born babies and a pregnant women were arrested. One month later they were killed and their bodies buried at the direct order of Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

Two days later, 22 Thai fishermen who were lost near Christie Island were also arrested, killed and their boat sunk, according to Aung Lynn Htut.

“I had to follow orders and couldn't countermand them,” Aung Lynn Htut said, remembering the victims and wanting to do whatever he could for them.

According to a statement previously released by Aung Lynn Htut, Colonel Zaw Min, now serving as minister for the No. 1 Electric Power Department and former joint secretary general of the Union Solidarity Development Association, Lt-Col Soe Tin, Lt-Col Win Swe and Navy Lt Commander Aung Gyi were directly involved in the killings.

Lt Commander Aung Gyi was also the commander of the Burmese navy force that killed the Thai fishermen on the order of Than Shwe.

Speaking of the recent military reshuffle, Aung Lynn Htut said moving top military officials in the Burmese military leadership aimed at perpetuating Than Shwe's power by removing officers close to his main rival, Vice-Snr Gen Maung Aye, deputy commander in chief.

Recently, the junta's third and fourth ranking generals, Lt-Gen Shwe Mann and Lt-Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo, both quit their military positions and new officers close to Than Shwe below the age of 60 have replaced them.

Aung Lynn Htut said: “Than Shwe will remove anyone he thinks threatens him. No one can oppose him. He can do whatever he wants in both political and military spheres.”

He pointed out that two officers close to Maung Aye were replaced. Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the former Chief of Military Affairs Security and the regime's negotiator with the cease-fire armed ethnic groups who once served as Maung Aye's personal assistant was replaced by Maj-Gen Kyaw Swe, and Air Defense Chief Lt-Gen Myint Hlaing, who is close to Maung Aye, was replaced by Maj-Gen Sein Win.

The newly appointed officers have no information about how former officials dealt with the ethnic armed groups nor about dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.

"Former dictator Gen Ne Win reshuffled his commanders in the military every 3-5 years and Than Shwe is following in his footsteps," said Win Htein, a former captain in the Burmese armed forces and personal assistant to Suu Kyi.

“High ranking commanders who are left in their posts for too long can build up power, so they are frequently rotated," he said.

"The reshuffle was not made out of state interests," he said, adding that it also served as a redeployment in preparation for the election.

I don't detect any dissent in the army. They just have to follow orders and let themselves be moved around,” he said.

irrawaddy.org

this from 2008


Burma: Than Shwe 'ordered troops to execute villagers'
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor
June 7, 2008

The leader of the Burmese junta, Than Shwe, personally ordered the murder of scores of unarmed villagers and Thai fishermen, according to a senior diplomat and military intelligence officer who defected to America.

Aung Lin Htut, formerly the deputy chief of mission at the Burmese Embassy in Washington, described to a radio station how 81 people, including women and children, were shot and buried on an isolated island after straying into a remote military zone in the southeast of the country in 1998.

After one general hesitated to kill the civilians, fearing that the commander who had given the order was drunk, he was informed that it came from “Aba Gyi” or “Great Father” – the term used to refer to Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the junta.

A few days later troops from the same military base captured a Thai fishing boat that had strayed close to Christie Island in the Mergui Archipelago. The 22 fishermen on board were also shot and buried on the island. “I was a witness to the two incidents in which a total of about 81 people were killed,” Mr Aung Lin Htut, formerly a major in military intelligence, told the Burmese language service of Voice of America. “All of them were unarmed civilians.” In 46 years of military rule in Burma, there have been numerous reports of grave human rights violations but few have been attested by so well placed a source as Mr Aung Lin Htut. They come at a time when General Than Shwe and his regime are coming under scrutiny, after their refusal to allow a full scale relief operation for the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The French Government has said that it comes close to being a “crime against humanity”, and last week Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, called it “criminal neglect”. If a tribunal like the ones established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is ever created for Burma, then Mr Aung Lin Htut will doubtless be called to give evidence.

He sought asylum in the US in 2005, along with six members of his family, after a purge against the country’s prime minister and intelligence chief of the time by General Than Shwe destroyed the careers of a generation of intelligence officers. Given the control of information in Burma, his account is impossible to verify. But it has credibility because it is the first time since his defection that Mr Aung Lin Htut has made any public comment on his former masters.

In May 1998 he was stationed on Zadetkyi island, a frontline base close to Burma’s maritime border with Thailand. The commander of the base was Colonel Zaw Min, who is now Minister for Electric Power and general secretary of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the junta’s grassroots organisation.

A unit led by the colonel landed on Christie Island and found 59 people living there to gather wood and bamboo, in violation of Burmese law. The order came back from headquarters that they were to be “eliminated”.

Myint Swe, an air force general, said that he was a religious person, and that the matter should be handled delicately. He said that he was very concerned by the timing of the elimination order – just after lunch, a time when General Maung Aye, now the number two in the junta, was usually drunk.

timesonline.co.uk