|
Sunday June 11 4:11 AM ET
God's Army Temporarily Give Up Arms BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Twin 12-year-old boys from Myanmar who command a
rebel group called God's Army have temporarily laid down their arms and are
devoting themselves full-time to Christianity, a Thai newspaper reported
Sunday.
The Bangkok Post reported that Johnny and Luther Htoo, whose followers
believe they have magical powers, are now living in a Christian ethnic Karen
village in Myanmar about 20 miles from the Thai border. It said they have shaved
their heads to try to avoid being recognized and traded in their uniforms for
traditional Karen garb.
But Luther was quoted by the newspaper as vowing to continue the struggle
against the military government of Myanmar, also called Burma.
``I clearly remember how Burmese soldiers killed my men and pregnant women,'' he said. ``I will seek revenge.'' Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The Karen minority has
been fighting for more autonomy since 1949, but has been losing ground steadily
over the past decade.
The Htoo brothers are the leaders of God's Army, an armed group of ethnic
Karen. They have been on the run since late January, when their headquarters at
Ka Mar Pa Law, just across the border from Thailand, fell to Myanmar government
forces.
God's Army achieve notoriety when it allegedly took part in seizing a
hospital and hundreds of patients in western Thailand on January 24. Another
fringe insurgent group called the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors also took
part in the raid, authorities said. Thai commandoes stormed the hospital the
next day, killing all 10 hostage-takers.
God's Army was believed to have 100 to 200 men and boys under arms before
it lost its base. Afterward, Johnny and Luther fled with 10 armed rebels and
stayed in a Thai village for a week, hidden from Thai and Myanmar authorities
who were searching for them.
The boys, like many Karen, are fundamentalist Christians. They are said to
have promised the headman in the village where they are staying that they will
lay down their weapons and devote themselves to Christianity while they are
there.
Sunday, June 11 3:57 PM SGT
Myanmar Rebel Twins Said To Give Up ArmsBANGKOK (AP)--The 12-year-old twin boys from Myanmar who command a mystical insurgent group called God's Army have temporarily laid down their arms and are devoting themselves full-time to Christianity, a Thai newspaper reported Sunday.Johnny and Luther Htoo, the leaders of the armed ethnic Karen group, have been on the run since late January, when their headquarters at Ka Mar Pa Law, just across the border from Thailand, fell to Myanmar government forces. God's Army achieve notoriety when it was alleged to have taken part in seizing a hospital with hundreds of patients in western Thailand Jan. 24 along with another fringe insurgent group called the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors. Thai commandos stormed the hospital the next day, killing all 10 hostage-takers. The Bangkok Post reported that the boys, whose followers believe they have magical powers of victory, are now living in a Christian Karen village about 35 kilometers inside Myanmar opposite Thailand's Kanchanaburi province. It said they have saved their heads to try to avoid being recognized and traded in their uniforms for traditional Karen garb. They were said to have promised the village headman they would lay down their weapons and devote themselves to Christianity during their stay. The boys, like many Karen, are fundamentalist Christians, and their old base included a church. Luther was quoted by the newspaper as vowing to continue their struggle against the military government of Myanmar, also called Burma. "I clearly remember how Burmese soldiers killed my men, and pregnant women, " he said. "I will seek revenge," Before it lost its base, God's Army was believed to have 100 to 200 man and boys under arms. When their base was overrun, Johnny and Luther fled with ten armed rebels, and for a week stayed in a Thai village, even though they were being sought as avidly by Thai authorities as by Myanmar ones. Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The Karen minority has been fighting for more autonomy since 1949, but has been losing ground steadily over the past decade. Other ethnic groups have also opposed the central government, but most agreed to cease-fires in recent years. Montreal Gazette - Saturday 10 June 2000
Sad start to century for
Burma
NORMAN WEBSTER
The Gazette The brave Burmese journalist U Thaung, now in exile in the United States,
was recently named one of 50 "press freedom heroes" of the last half of the 20th
century. He received the award last month in Boston, at the annual assembly of
the International Press Institute.
The courage of such people always brings a lump to my throat. I went up to
him in Boston to shake his hand and say that I had been in his unhappy homeland
three years ago.
"Ah, then, you know what it's all about," he said.
He was being gracious, but the sad fact is that what he said is so. For the
most part, I do know how things are in Burma - for the simple reason that almost
nothing has changed, except perhaps for the worse, since I was there.
In sum, the country is decaying, its 50 million people are desperately
poor, its rulers are thugs and its shining symbol of political legitimacy, Aung
San Suu Kyi, remains under wraps in a peeling villa in Rangoon. Nothing the rest
of the world says or does seems to have any effect.
As the Economist noted at the beginning of the year, "Myanmar (the regime's
name for Burma) is a country that, like Cuba and North Korea, has turned its
back on the world. As a result, it will be 2000's most needlessly miserable
country."
Rogue Regime
John Ralston Saul, husband of Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, has a
similar view. Saul, a longtime campaigner for Burmese liberation, calls the
junta in Rangoon "a rogue regime" comparable to the former racist rulers of
South Africa.
Speaking in Montreal last December, at a ceremony honouring two other
heroic Burmese, Saul noted something that may be fundamental to the whole
miserable business: the ruling generals are dim, mediocre people. His
observation rang a bell - for it was just what Aung San Suu Kyi said when I
interviewed her in Rangoon three years ago.
Over tea in her front room at 54 University Ave., she repeatedly portrayed
her opponents as brutal dodos. "They're just not very bright," she said
repeatedly. "I really think (the junta) should make the Guinness Book of records
as the stupidest government yet."
(One darkly hilarious example: the Burmese minister with the twin
responsibilities of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare.)
As she was then, Aung San Suu Kyi remains one of the world's most
compelling public figures. Still eloquent, still strikingly attractive at 54,
still as tough and determined as a Margaret Thatcher, still firmly non-violent,
she continues to do what Churchill did - marshall words, the only weapons she
has, and send them out to hector and infuriate her enemies.
As the daughter of Burma's assassinated national hero, Aung San - "second
only to Buddha," a Burmese explained - she has a special place in people's
affections. That was solidified in 1990, exactly 10 years and two weeks ago,
when her National League for Democracy won a spectacular 81 per cent of the
seats in an election.
This was another indication of the dimness of the regime, which allowed the
vote only because it thought its own party would win. Bad calculation; it took
just 2 per cent of the seats. The regime refused to accept the result, and
slammed the boot of repression down hard.
Not a Fairy Tale
Aung San Suu Kyi remained an optimist. In the baking heat of Rangoon, she
used the image of a frozen lake. "When the sun comes out and the ice melts, you
find that there was a lot of life underneath all along."
In a fairy tale, of course, the ice would go out with a rush, as it does in
Canadian lakes in springtime; the regime would crumble, as happened in Communist
Europe and Indonesia, and the beautiful princess with the flower in her hair
would become queen of all.
It is a lovely vision, but it reckons without the hardy, thick-headed
generals. They seem to have few ambitions beyond staying in power and getting
their pictures taken playing golf. No one can identify a potential Gorbachev, or
De Klerk, someone with imagination and a desire to be on the right side of
history, someone who will finally talk turkey with Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Yes, she'll make it in the end," one cynical diplomat told me in Rangoon,
"but she'll be as old as Nelson Mandela." What a depressing way to begin the
century.
- Norman Webster is a former editor of The Gazette.
The Observer
Burmese glaze
The British Museum offers a taste of a
lost world, says Sue Arnold
Sunday June 11, 2000
When my niece Aye Aye Mo was studying at Mandalay University, she asked me
shyly if I would like to see her room. It was on the second floor of the women's
accommodation block, windowless with a concrete floor, and just big enough to
hold two beds (she shared with a school friend) and two narrow bedside tables.
Nothing else. Light and air, from the central courtyard, filtered in through the
3ft gap between the ceiling and the wall that partitioned Aye Aye Mo's room from
the corridor.
The only ornament, indeed the only object apart from clothes and furniture that I can remember from the visit, was a deep round lacquer box, about the size of a biscuit tin, with a pointed lid. This was her junk box where she kept make-up, jewellery, wooden hair combs and photographs of her family back in the Shan States. It was a wonderful box, but then Burmese lacquer work is a wonderful craft.
Its crimson, yellow and dark green pattern glowed richly in that sparse little
room, reminding me of all the wealth and warmth that was synonymous with Burma
and its people in the old days, the good days. Musing on this, I visited the new
exhibition of Burmese lacquer at the British Museum, the first exhibition of any
kind to come out of Burma since 1850. What makes it so special, apart from the
magnificent artefacts, is that it provides a rare glimpse of a country which,
through political isolation, has all but disappeared from the world map.
In the days when tourists did visit Burma - and there were never many at
the best of times, thanks to the primitive infrastructure, shabby hotels and
terrible roads - you could guarantee their souvenirs included something lacquer.
Perhaps it was a le phet jar bought from craftsmen in Pagan, or a tiered tiffin
carrier from the floating market on Inlay Lake, or a last-minute set of coasters
from the Rangoon airport shop.To visit Burma and come back lacquerless was as
unthinkable as returning from Spain minus castanets.
Lacquer, as this exhibition beautifully demonstrates, has been used in
every facet of Burmese life - domestic, religious, artistic, and ceremonial
since the twelfth century at least. At its most basic, it serves as a protective
waterproof heat resistant coating for tableware; at its most ornate, painted,
polished, gilded and mirrored, it decorates royal thrones and Buddhist shrines.
Unique examples of both, together with ancient manuscripts, magnificently carved
screens and statuary are all here.
There is a tourist boycott of Burma now, as its brutal military regime
keeps the country's elected leader, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu
Kyi, under house arrest. And last month the ethical travel pressure group,
Tourist Concern, and the Burma Campaign UK, launched a boycott of Lonely Planet
guides because publisher Tony Wheeler refused to withdraw a book on Burma. If
you are heeding Aung Sang Suu Kyi's heartfelt advice to stay away, until
democracy is restored, a visit to this small, tranquil, exotic and curiously
moving exhibition will serve as a satisfying hors d'oeuvre for the real banquet
ahead.
• Visions from the Golden Land: Burma and the Art of Lacquer is at the
British Museum until 13 August
Bangkok Post - June 11,
2000.
GOD'S
ARMY Twins can still dream of revengeDisarmed and in hiding in
Burma
Preecha Srisathan
The warrior twin child leaders of God's Army have
temporarily laid down their arms and taken refuge in a remote Burmese village
opposite Kanchanaburi. Twelve-year-old Johnny and Luther Htoo are living in a Karen Christian
village about 35km from the Thai border, roughly opposite tambon Bong Ti in
Kanchanaburi's Saiyok district, The community is led by a 70-year-old man, who at first refused to discuss
the boys' out of concern for retribution if their presence became public
knowledge, but relented on the condition no photographs were taken. The twins, spiritual commanders of the Christian Karen guerrilla group, went
into hiding after their jungle base in Kamaplaw, opposite Ratchaburi's Suan
Phueng district, was overrun by Burmese troops. They had their heads shaved to
conceal their identity and then promised the village headman to lay down their
arms and devote themselves to Christianity during their stay in the village. But Luther cannot get revenge out of his mind. "I clearly remember how
Burmese soldiers killed my men, and pregnant women. I will seek revenge," he
said, speaking through a Karen translator. Burmese forces launched heavy assaults on anti-Rangoon groups in the wake of
the occupation of Ratchaburi hospital earlier this year by ethnic gunmen said to
be God's Army members. They held doctors, staff and patients hostage for 22 hours before Thai
security forces stormed the building and killed all 10 intruders. After assessing the situation, Luther and his twin brother fled Kamaplaw,
along with 10 other armed rebels, including a student known as Johnny who took
part in the Burmese embassy occupation in Bangkok last October. Luther said he did not know about the fate of other Karen fighters, only that
they could not flee into Thailand because of the extra-tight security. His team kept close to the border as they headed north. He said they parted
from Johnny, who was wounded in the leg, at a rebel base and had not heard from
him since. Luther and his people eventually crossed into Thailand and stayed for a week
at a church in Ban Bong Ti, where he had his head shaved. In this Christian village the boys, who hold the rank of colonel, gave up
their weapons and uniforms and changed into traditional Karen costumes. Throughout the interview, Luther talked while Johnny remained silent. The
twins are respected by Karen fighters as spiritual commanders because they are
different-they have black tongues which they said indicates they are children of
God. Before going to war, the fighters pay their respects to the boys in a
spiritual ceremony and receive blessings for good luck and victory. "We must put more stringent controls on those people.. we can no longer let
them roam freely since our country's forest is at stake," said Prapat
Pothasuthon, the agriculture minister. Refugee camps should be relocated far away from the border, particularly the
Salween River, said army and forestry officials. "They must be moved out of Salween national park to end this. They have
agreed to be relocated and we are now choosing a suitable site," said Lt-Gen
Wattanachai Chaimuanwong, commander of the Third Army Region. The talks between the two agencies took place during the minister's visit to
Chiang Mai and Nan last Friday, in a bid to curb rampant illegal logging in Mae
Hong Son. At present, there are two refugee camps-Mae Kongka and Mae Lama Luang-in Mae
Hong Son. Both are in the park and near the river. Although the government has closed five of seven shelters to make it easier
for monitoring, forest destruction by the group has not lessened, according to
the director of the Forest Protection Office. "Big loggers are no longer a large threat since there's virtually no massive
felling of trees. The problem now is the refugees," said Somchai
Pienstaporn. Statistics between October 1997 and May this year showed most of the 255
arrests were of refugees. The latest arrest was a month ago. Forestry officials nabbed a young refugee
who was among a big group of adults found felling trees in Salween forest near
the camps. According to forestry chief Plodprasop Suraswadi, refugees are hired by
loggers to fell trees. The loggers then inform the police who confiscate the logs and later put them
up for auction by the Forest Industry Organisation. The loggers thus get the
logs legally at a cheaper price since they did not have to haul and transport
them, he said. "Another way is to fell trees and then go out to negotiate with any loggers
who are interested."Lt-Gen Wattanachai admitted that controlling the movement of
the refugees was an uphill task. The camps were supported by international organisations including the United
Nations. For humanitarian reasons, refugees were somewhat free to roam in and
out of the camps, making it difficult for authorities to keep an eye on
them. "Once here, most refugees don't want to go back. The problem is they want
more and more comfort so they just leave the camp to make some money illegally,"
added Saowarat Yimrungruang, district chief of Mae Sariang. He said that controlling the refugees was "almost impossible", with 40-50
officers in charge of more than 11,000 refugees. "The best way is to keep them
away from the forest," he said. Governor Poj U-thana said US representatives who inspected two refugee
shelters in Muang and Khun Yuam districts last week were satisfied with the
living conditions of the refugees and agreed to the province's repatriation
plan. "They appeared to agree with our plan to send the refugees back home in the
next three years. "Anyway, there is still a problem with the UNHCR's move to establish its
office in Burma. "It may take some time (for the UNHCR) to contact Burmese authorities. "And Rangoon has not yet agreed to welcome these people back to Burma so it
will be up to the higher-ups to push for this," the governor added. Currently, all four refugee camps in Muang, Khun Yuam, Mae Sariang and Sop
Moei districts house a total 35,000 Karen refugees. Chiang
Rai One of the key suspects in the murder
of former deputy interior minister Santi Chaiviratana has fled to Burma, a
police source said yesterday. Olarn Phacharoen, alias Lung Nuad, has gone into hiding in an armed hilltribe
drug-producing village in Burma's Tachilek district, the source said. Mr Olarn is suspected of having accepted a contract to kill Mr Santi. Mr Santi was gunned down on May 24 in the office of his engineering
consultancy in Chiang Rai. Investigators believe the motive could have been a business conflict, as his
company is supervising the construction of Chiang Mai municipality's drainage
and water treatment
system. |