Sounds of Bones Brittling at the ABSDF (North) Part Two
By Aung Moe Win
Recently, I read a comment on Face Book, which came from the other side in defense of those who were in charge of killings at the ABSDF (North). His comment was this:
“Those responsible (for the incidents in 1991) are now making some preparation to give you a rebuttal.”
Of course, I really appreciate that kind of response. I feel thankful, indeed.
It feels as though our story was approaching a climax just as in one of famous stories of Min Thein Ga, titled “Speak the truth Ma Min Phyu.” It feels like atmosphere around the famous line in the book: “Well, well I.P. Mr. Aung Thin, the chain of events, especially here, is coming close to its climax.”
Yes, it feels like everything is coming together pointed toward the climax; at the same time, all that we have demanded is nothing but the truthful disclosure of who were responsible (for those tragic incidents). It has been long that I have been somewhat inclined to hunt down the culprits who murdered the (innocent students) in a cold-blooded manner.
I am going to tell you another incident. After some fifty of the innocent detainees broke themselves free from the camp’s detention center just before the time they were to be executed, the news reached Myo Win and he was prepared for that. It was said he collapsed upon hearing it and complained in fury:
“Oh, my god! Why? Why? My life will be over!”
The small world in which he had absolute tyrannical power to torture and abuse whosoever he disliked seemed to be falling apart at that moment. His little world had caught fire! It was collapsing. Not long after that moment, things turned out as though
his negative Kamma followed and pulled him apart. Myo Win was killed with a bullet coming from behind, yet it was often said that he was cleaned up to prevent truth from coming out.
The fact is that no one wanted him to die like that. Now that he had committed several crimes, it is not at all worthwhile to see him leave the world too fast. Like Than Gaung, this Myo Win could have been given 5-times life imprisonment in Burma. At that point, Ronald Aung Naing made a suggestion to his side:
“We’d better clean up. Who would take responsibility for that ? What about disbanding the group?”
If he suggested that, I wondered what would have become of Hla Sai ( You may say Hla Saung in some Kachin accent). I heard that he has buried his past by hiding somewhere near the Chinese border. He had a big reputation as someone who chopped the students up to death at Asam hill. How badly I want to meet him personally! I really want to find out what cells and tissues his heart was made up of , to have been possessed by demons.
(1)
Before I continue any further in this Part Two, I would like to make a humble request to all my friends who gave me their sincere heart-felt comments after they read my Part One. I would like to request you to speak kindly and fairly of the ABSDF. I would also suggest that you all avoid making careless insensitive criticism against the ABSDF members.
There is a certain kind of students inside Burma, who are only concerned about their personal lives. What do they do? They live with the parents, pursue formal education, enjoy the student life to the maximum, and get engaged in some business. While these students were preparing themselves for a personal life, the ABSDF comrades had gone through a lot. They got befriended with malaria, and many lost their lives fighting all kinds of hardship in the liberated areas to prove their love for the country. They had made tremendous sacrifice in many ways. They never had any personal life to enjoy.
They sacrificed their youth for the country. They also had to make compromises to reach understanding and unity among ethnic leaders. Even if you are not willing to acknowledge them as freedom fighters up against Ne Win, Than Shwe, and their facist government, you will never discredit their sacrifice. You will never judge them scornfully and disrespectfully.
A small group of people from the ABSDF and their bloody actions have nothing to do with the whole organization. Because of a few individuals in the ABSDF, you will never think of the majority of the students’ army as a group of bloody, heartless members. By all means, the ABSDF students are poor sensitive souls, and they can get hurt easily. They took up arms to save their country from the military dictatorship. You will always accept the very fact that those people sacrificed their youth for the country. It took a great deal of courage to go underground to fight against the government. Those comrades in the ABSDF are fundamentally very strong and sincere. The All Burma students Union and this ABSDF seemed inseparable like the opposite sides of a single coin.
However, there was a group of people in the ABSDF who killed about thirty students including the student leader Ko Tun Aung Kyaw ( Mandalay). That terrible incident left indelible scars on the students of Rangoon and Mandalay. Ko Tun Aung Kyaw was an elected vice chairman of the All Buma Students Unions (Upper Burma) at the first conference in 1988. The news of KoTun Aung Kyaw and many others brutally killed in the jungle make all the students in Mandalay very bitter toward the leaders of the ABSDF camp. They vowed to chase and destroy the culprits when the news of the unbelievable tragedy reached Mandalay.
The culprits of the ABSDF have succeeded in dividing the All Burma Students Unions and the armed ABSDF. They achieved their goal by torturing and killing thirty innocent students. As you all know, it is no use hiding a crime forever.
In our step-by-step careful investigation of this case, we ought to find a solution calmly and critically at once. Who had caused a split between and among the students and their organizations? Why is it that there was so much of our emotional toll that never
seems to go away over time? I really want to make a careful study of the whole case in order to find the problems at the root.
When I am telling you this, I am with you, Comrades, both in spirit and ideals altogether. By the time you established the ABSDF 701 Battalion in northern Burma, I myself was distributing leaflets among the Mandalay population. It was near the army’s regiment at Myatpar District in Mandalay. I used to daydream picturing in my mind an imaginary marching of the student army back into town. I really looked forward to the home coming day of my beloved friends.
When I give you these facts, you can practice your right to argue or disagree with me. People have their own opinions on these matters, and it is perfectly right for you to stand firm on your own platform to debate.
Unlike the practice of those cruel leaders who tortured their victims to confess, there is not going to be any mean method to a forced confession here. I will not teach you the words to recite in order to frame you the way I like to hear from you.
I am willing to listen to you, and if you say, the evidence and supporting documents are not sufficient enough, I would love to fill the gap by providing you all the proof and evidence.
One person in his doubt commented: “Was it really true that some thirty students were brutally killed that way? How would it be possible that students kill one another?”
Such doubtful questions made me smile.
If it is the case then, please be prepared to answer a question from the side of Mandalay students.
If such incidents really happened, was there any strong likelihood in which students killed one another almost like in a massacre? Could it be only because of a plot under the skillful hands of those military intelligence men who got special training?
Here are three questions we have:
(1) Was it that students killed students?
(2) Was it that students killed MI men?
(3) Was it that MI men killed students?
I have my own reason why I said this in a specific way. Going back into my youthful days as an RIT student at Mo Hynin Dormitary, Myo Win ( Moe Hynin) was one of the pals I used to hand out.
I said to myself, “Oh My God”, when I heard of the news of Myo Win becoming an ABSDSF(N) member in an armed revolution. He was not joining the student army imbuied with ideals. Instead, he was often blood-thirsty and an extremely combatant and aggressive person even in the old days at college. Back then, I imagined him as becoming just a leader of coarse robbers and dacoits. Therefore, I never dreamed about joining the ABSDF in the north, just because of him.
Ko Tun Aung Kyaw, Ronald Aung Naing, and Ko Soe Lin (who was arrested at the central ABSDF camp later) were all from Mandalay. After all those events, only Ronald Aung Naing was the only one who enjoys an easy prosperous life in Maesod. He would hang out at parties to get drunk. You would often spot his oily seedy drunkard face at parties here and there. On Face Book pages, you would also run across his flirtatious comments directed to the girls.
Unlike in the favorable conditions around Ronald Aung Naing, Ko Tun Aung Kyaw, the vice chairman of All Burma Students Unions (Upper Burma) was murdered in his camp. Ko Soe Lin managed to escape later and returned to the legal fold in Mandalay. He afterwards took part in the June 3, 1922 Press Conference of the military government.
Be assured that I have more facts stronger and truer than the documents which came from the press conference hosted by the government back then. I will provide you every detail so that you can compare and match one set against the other. I also assume that you must have read the article by Bertil Lintner. His article “Loss of innocence” was printed in far Eastern Economic Review, July 16, 1992.
Throughout the history, no one remembers the military government as trust-worthy. Therefore, no one bothered to read their news papers at all. We all did not pay attention to the coverage of the press conference at that time. Even when the government assured that there was water in the river, I would rather go see it than believe their words straight away.
There was one individual who seemed to be showing off with somewhat lowly arrogant joke aimed at me. He asked me a question in such a suspicious tone as if I got all these facts and files from General Khin Nyunt’s MT unit. If you are keen on getting to know me, go around and ask the RIT students (Moe Hynin) at the ABSDF. However, you cannot ask Myo Win since he is dead.
If you are anxious to know something about me, just wait. Be patient. I would like to give you a warning though. What if you had known that those who supported the ABSDF leadership (North) gave me their testimonies once after they were terrified by the terrible events of the north camp?
(4)
Those who were accused of working for the government as spies were again given heavy sentences by the military authorities after they returned to the legal fold. Those who were involved in military-style interrogation against the students at Pa Gaung did not get any imprisonment longer than two years, and after they did their time in prison, they resumed their academic career. Some of them are from the same district of Moe Hynin, my hometown. One of them majored in mechanical engineering, and he admitted that he himself hit and beat the girl named Nan saw.
Since then, I have been investigating the ins and outs of all those events. Fortunately, both the people who took charge of interrogation unit and the others who became victims happened to be my friends. I know all of them personally. I listened to both sides, feeling saddened while hearing their stories. I got pangs in my chest when they told me their accounts in details. I was holding my breath and murmured in big surprise, and could not help but exclaim, “Oh, my god!”. I felt greatly disturbed throughout the time they recalled in their own words what had happened.
In addition to the fifteen who were beheaded on February 12, 1992, there were fourteen others who got killed at the interrogation hut. I provided you the names of these people at the end of this report.
Do not ask me how I have obtained the whole list, assuming that I am connected with the MI. Just be mindful that there were people who had suffered a lot, and they keep all their records in details, and they never forget anything. Everyone has a secret card!
ABSDF unit in charge of arresting the victims for their alleged connection with MI.
1. Major Than Gaung aka Myint Soe (military operations in-charge)
2. Secretary Aung Naing (later promoted to chairman position)
3. Captain Myo Win (Co-secretary, vice chairman of military operations in-charge, Moe Hynin, Nanmar)
4. Sergeant Than Zaw (Mandalay, Central Intelligence In-charge)
5. Sergeant Zaw Zaw Min (Moe Hynin, Central Intelligence in-charge)
6. Corporal Aung Soe Myint (Moe Hynin, Central Intelligence)
7. Sergeant Kyaw Htin Oo (Moe Hynin, Central Intelligence)
8. Private Maung Htway (Ban Maw)
9. Private Poe Hnaung (Ban Maw)
10. Private Thet Lin (Ban Maw)
ABSSF Unit in charge of interrogation
1. Hla Sai (Myit Gyi Na) co-general secretary. (He took part in all decapitations at Asam Hill. It is said he is hiding near the Chinese border.)
2. Sein Aye (Moe Hynin, Kachin District Commander)
3. Aung Than (Moe Hynin, 701 Commander)
4.Thet Tun, (Moe Hynin, Platoon in-charge)
5. Saw Yin Htway (Shwe Ku, Platoon in-charge)
6. Thike Htun Oo (Rangoon, 501 Commander)
7. Ye Lin (Rangoon, Rangoon District in-charge (He was later accused of working as a government spy and arrested.)
8. Nyi Nyi Kyaw ( Mandalay, Mandalay District in-charge (He was later accused of working as a government spy and arrested.)
Prison Governors and Guards
1. Second lieutenant Aung Min (Moe Hynin) and Sergeant Htein Lon (Ban Maw)
2. Sergeant Aye Maung (Moe Hynin) and Private Let Thee
3. Sergeant Tar Tee (Moe Hynin) and sergeiant Saw Mya Maung
4. Sergeant Hla Myo Aung (Moe Hynin, later he was beheaded for his failure to meet the guard duties.)
The list below contains names of those who lost their lives due to tortures at the interrogation unit.
1. Private Soe Min Aung
2. Central Committee member U Sein
3. Private Pye Soe Naing ( Rangoon)
4. Private Aye Kyaw
5. Private Kyaw Htay
6. Private Kyaw Kyaw Oo
7. Second lieutenant Aung K (Ban Maw)
8. Sergeant Zaw Win Chitr (Ban Maw)
9. Central Committee member Khin Maung Aye (Sit Gaing)
10. Private Tint lwin (Myit Gyi Na)
11. Aung Min (Mandalay)
12. Ahshay Gyi Win Thein
13. Private Soe Gyi
14. Ra Kout Bi (China, Yin Jaug)
What was the reason behind this massacre at the ABSDDF North? It was murders of dozens of people. Who are the culprits having done that in cold blood? I will continue to explain further in my Part Three.
I also welcome any rebuttal from the other side in their defense.
Friends, God bless your home. I wish you Merry Christmas and good luck!
Aung Moe Win
December 23, 2011
Post By Htein Lin
