SHAN: Shan Answer to Burmese Magic

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Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 18:08:16 -0700

[forwarded by the Shan Herald News Agency]

S.H.A.N : SHAN ANSWER TO BURMESE MAGIC
Muangmai , October 9, 1995

For more than four decades, since the first entry of Burmese troops into
the Shan State, reports about Burmese astrologers using sorcery in the
name of the promotion of Buddism in order to keep the rebellious Shans
under their permanent subjugation have been numerous.Statues of the
Buddha and Pagodas built by the Burmese are said to have been designed
to sow dissension among the Shans so as to facilitate Burmese domination
over them. 

Now the Shan shamans in Homong, the capital of the resistance, say they
have discovered the cause of Major Karnyord's munity and the subsequent
chaos in the Mong Tai Army, the largest rebel armed resistance movement
fighting against the SLORC. According to them, one of the many
travelling astrologers passing in and out of the rebels' " Free
Territory " until last year is a Burmese agent who made several magical
designs for the sacred places and homes of the local populace,
ostensibly to help advance their general wellbeing, but actually with
evil intent. S.H.A.N was shown by the shamans how it was done, before
the ominous designs were put to the torce. 

The Shan astrologers' answer to this " Star Wars " offensive of the
Burmese has been the construction of the Saijaikhurn " Line of Life "
Pagoda since last August. The crowning Ceremony in November is due to be
presided over by the new chairman Zao Gunjade, who was mistakenly
reported by foreign press to have gone over to the mutineers' camp. 

" You educated people may laugh at us, " says one veteran astrologer. "
But if you think carefully how our troops, outnumbered and outgunned by
the Wa several times, have been able to beat off their offensive on
Setember 19, you will understand it is not to be treated as a joke."