Narinjara news
August 13 the Rice
Killing Day :
Painted in “Patches of Blood” on Streets and Important Buildings
Sittwe, 20 August 02: In the night of August 12th, unidentified persons painted blood-coloured patches on the main streets and many important
buildings of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, according to our special correspondent.
The paintings were done in memory of the Sittwe Rice
Killing day, 35 years ago. The crimson patches appeared all on a sudden on the
walls of the Mra Rice Mill where the main killings
were carried out by the then Revolutionary Council junta. The other places
where the patches were seen included, the Sittwe
Clock Tower that is just in front of the No. 1 Police Station, State High
School No. 4, and Lawkananda Pagoda built by SPDC
junta with wide scale use of forced labour, and the streets across the town.
As soon as the military intelligence agents came to know about the incidence,
they promptly took to wiping off the marks of protest before sunrise. Though
the MI agents tried their best to do so there were a lot of red patches here
and there scattered on the streets and walls. Slowly the townspeople came to
know about the mystery of the red markings as words quickly spread from person
to person.
Thirty-five years ago on August 13th,
Rakhine people irrespective of race or religion came
out in peaceful rally against the artificial famine created by exporting the
entire produce of rice of the state to communist China by the ruling Burmese
junta led by soldier-dictator Ne Win, the predecessor of the present-day ruling
juntas, taking no heed of the local needs.
It is alleged that, that day more than three hundred people were gunned down on
and thousands have been missing ever since. Every year the Rakhine
people have been commemorating the day secretly, hidden from the eyes of the
ruling Burmese juntas a testimony to the silent defiance of the Rakhine people against military dictatorship in
Since the 12th August 02 the
military intelligence and the SPDC junta officials have been busy to uncover
the mystery of the red marks of protest, and launched a state-wide hunt for the
invisible authors in the town, it was learnt. #