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Southeast Asia
Higher Death Toll Suggested in Myanmar
2003-06-06
EFL
U.S. diplomats who visited the site of political clashes in Myanmar saw bloody clothes and homemade weapons, suggesting far more people may have been killed than the four reported by the military junta, a U.S. Embassy official said Thursday. Evidence gathered at the site also indicated the fighting in northern Myanmar, which broke out around democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade as she toured the region last Friday, was orchestrated by the government. The junta detained her after the clash and has not disclosed her whereabouts.
Sounds like they whacked her.
``What they found corroborates eyewitness reports circulating of a premeditated ambush on Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade,'' the official said. The two diplomats who visited the scene of the attack found signs of ``great violence,'' including bloody clothing, numerous homemade weapons and smashed headlights and mirrors. The official would not detail all the information suggesting a premeditated attack but said it included photographs and physical evidence. Myanmar's lying junta has said the fighting began when Suu Kyi's motorcade drove through a crowd of townspeople protesting her visit and that four people were killed. Exile groups allege that government-backed forces staged an ambush and that 70 or more people may have been killed over two days. Exiled opposition figures in Thailand say the Nobel Peace Prize winner may have received head injuries in the violence. The junta insists that Suu Kyi and colleagues detained with her are fine - although it refuses to divulge where they are held.
In a morgue, I'm afraid.
The exiled figures say the clash was planned by the junta to justify a crackdown on Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
Which will fool no one other than Chomsky and ANSWER.
U.S. officials said Thursday that some of those claims were corroborated by diplomats who visited the scene. ``Circumstances and reports from individuals in the region indicate that the attack was conducted by government-affiliated thugs,'' U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said in Washington. ``The debris remaining at the scene suggests a major clash, which could easily have resulted in serious injuries to large numbers of people.'' At least 19 members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party were also detained. The military, which has put Suu Kyi under house arrest several times since 1989, has repeatedly sought to quash her movement and said she was taken into ``protective custody.'' Tight media controls and the remote location of the clash made it impossible to confirm what happened. Phone lines to the area appear to have been cut.
That's always a bad sign...
Myanmar's government is under pressure to produce Suu Kyi by Friday, when U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail visits. Razali told The Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur he expected to meet junta leader Gen. Than Shwe to push for Suu Kyi's release. As he prepared to leave for Myanmar, the diplomat said he would investigate the violence by talking to all sides ``to get factual details of what took place.'' Razali said senior U.N. officials had asked him to proceed with the visit even though the junta has refused to give assurances that he would be allowed to meet her.
Good luck, Razali; let's see if the UN can be useful for a change.
Posted by:Steve White

#4  USDA?
Didn't'know the United States Department of Agriculture hired thugs.
Posted by: Raptor   2003-06-07 08:54:12  

#3  Who bad an imperialist hegemon would the US be if we went in and cleaned out the Junta. The left should love us for that, no? Yeah right.
Posted by: Yank   2003-06-06 19:42:31  

#2  According to Burmese exile groups - whose accounts have now been supported by United States diplomats in Rangoon - the NLD convoy was attacked by thousands of USDA members, plain-clothes members of the security forces and freed convicts armed with sticks, machetes and some firearms who had been transported into the area with the assistance of local military commanders.
The exile groups claim that many people were killed and that both Ms Suu Kyi and deputy NLD chairman Tin Oo were injured. While the accounts of the toll and the extent of the leaders' reported injuries remain conflicting, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says "disturbing and credible reports" indicate the death toll was much higher than the four acknowledged by officials. Some exile sources said Ms Suu Kyi suffered head injuries and a broken arm when she was beaten by the mob and that TinOo, a 76-year-old former army chief of staff, suffered minor gunshot wounds. Unidentified sources told the BBC and Agence France Presse that Ms Suu Kyi had been "hurt by shards of glass on her face and shoulder" when a brick smashed her car windscreen. The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a self-styled shadow government based in the United States, said about 70 people were killed. The Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma, which had earlier broadcast extracts of Ms Suu Kyi's speech in Monywa, reported that she had suffered a serious head injury and that "scores of people" had died in the attack.

I think that the government goons were supposed to beat up her supporters and maybe arrest her. Things got out of control and she was seriously injured or killed and now the government is now frantically trying to figure out what to do.
Posted by: Steve   2003-06-06 13:33:26  

#1  Stratfor was speculating that this action might have been done by the regional leadership who want no part of even going through the motions with Aung.

Whether the high command will feel that bad about this, even if true, is another question.
Posted by: Hiryu   2003-06-06 12:33:54  

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