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Defector: 'Than Shwe ordered massacre'

[Above is a photo-composite showing Burma's Senior General Than Shwe with ladies' underwear on his head (thanks to Burma Digest).

Below is a serious news story about the kind of thing he has done in his time. You can read it in the newspaper here.]

The leader of the Burmese junta, Than Shwe, personally ordered the murder of scores of unarmed villagers and Thai fishermen, according to a senior diplomat and military intelligence officer who defected to the United States.

Aung Lin Htut, formerly the deputy chief of mission at the Burmese embassy in Washington, described to a radio station how 81 people, including women and children, were shot dead and buried on an isolated island after straying into a remote military zone in the south-east of the country in 1998.

After one general hesitated to kill the civilians, fearing that the commander who had given the order was drunk at the time, he was informed that it came from “Aba Gyi” or “Great Father” – the term used to refer to Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the junta.

A few days later, troops from the same military base captured a Thai fishing boat which had strayed lose to Christie Island in the Mergui Archipelago. The 22 fishermen on boat were also shot and buried on the island. “I was a witness to the two incidents which happened consecutively in which a total of about 81 people were killed,” Mr Aung Lin Htut, formerly a major in military intelligence told the Burmese language service of Voice of America. “All of them were unarmed civilians.”

Days of The Rat: Predictions for 2008

[Tokyo, late December, the blackest hour of the night. At the door of my apartment, a feeble, scratching knock. Outside stands a man so ancient that it is impossible even to guess his age. His dark skin is papery and wrinkled, his eyes are brown pools, and his earlobes hang loose from the weight of the polished rhinoceros horns which pierce them. He presses an object into my hand, picks up his blow pipe, and melts into the night.

It is a twist of parchment containing three or four lumps of a dried out, woody substance. My sniffs of gratification turn into cackles of triumph. My wishes have been granted. My dreams have come true. The future is mine!

Every year this blog solicits predictions for the year ahead from Asia’s most renowned prophets and soothsayers. The results have been lamentable. The Sage of Singapore, whom I consulted for 2006, was a bit of a disappointment. Madam Sosostris, last year’s featured soothsayer, was a disgrace! What was the fatuous old trout on about?

This year I decided to take matters into my own hands. Through contacts among the Dayak people of Borneo, I acquired certain . . . substances, harvested from the rain forest by the timanggong, or animist wizards. When inhaled, in combination with the correct incantations, they open invisible doors which allow glimpses of the future. Men of weak spirit would be driven mad by such visions, but this is a risk which I am prepared to take for you, my readers.

I drop the woody lumps, as instructed, into a cauldron of snake blood, and heat it slowly, breathing in the fumes and muttering the eldritch syllables inked on the parchment. Within moments, I am transported to the jungle. Faces painted with blood and clay flash before my eyes. My ears are filled with the sounds of insects and the screams of animals and humans. The Great Lord of the Forest taps me on the shoulder and whispers in my ear . . . Here is what I see in 2008, Heisei 20, the Year of the Rat . . . ]

Inside Than Shwe's jungle fortress

[Our correspondent inside Burma recently visited Naypyidaw, the military dictatorship's bizarre new capital. A shorter version of this article appears in today's newspaper.]

Kenneth Denby
Naypyidaw, Burma

Even before you have arrived in the remarkable city of Naypyidaw, it is obvious that this is a place like no other in Burma. It’s not just the isolation, in a reclaimed jungle 200 miles from the sea; it’s not the ban on foreigners, which is circumvented easily enough. The most extraordinary thing about the world’s newest capital is the road leading into it.

Ten lanes wide, cut flat and straight through hills and forests, it is the grandest and fastest stretch of road in a country where potholed tracks qualify as major highways. Occasionally, a cement lorry rumbles by on its way to one of the city’s many building sites. From time to time, a rickety open-backed minibus drives past. But otherwise, the traffic on this mighty autobahn consists of sputtering motorbikes, horse-drawn carts, and lines of women carrying heavily laden baskets on their heads

This is Naypyidaw, the “Place of the Kings”, the most mysterious and bizarre capital city in the world. Its broad roads, grandiose public buildings and shopping centres are meant as a model of the advanced Asian city – but many of them stand empty and unused. Unknown millions have been lavished on its construction, in a country where most people live on less than a dollar a day.

Its inaccessible location is intended to protect the hated military junta of Senior General Than Shwe – but many believe that the government’s increased isolation is hastening its downfall. Naypyidaw is the Burmese dictatorship in microcosm, a monument to the generals’ ambition, xenophobia, paranoia, and simple barmy incompetence. Earlier this month, I became the first western journalist to visit the capital since the junta’s bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy protests last month.

Patchy service

Apologies for the infrequency of posts over the past couple of weeks. As they say on Facebook, "it's complicated".

When time allows I will put up some of the news pieces and other contributions from The Times correspondent inside Burma. In the meantime, you can read his newspaper stories in the Asia section of Times Online; or enter "Kenneth Denby" into the search engine.

Back soon . . .

The Ogre

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi exerting efforts for Confrontation, Utter Devastation, and Imposing All Kinds of Sanctions including Economic Sanctions against Myanmar - If she declares to give them up, the Senior General will personally meet her.

Headline in The New Light of Myanmar, the government-controlled newspaper, 5th October 2007.

The Ogre does what ogres can,

Deeds quite impossible for Man.

But one prize is beyond his reach,

The Ogre cannot master speech:

About a subjugated plain,

Among its desperate and slain,

The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,

While drivel gushes from his lips.

W.H Auden, August 1968

The Saffron Revolution?

"It is a fascinating moment, fraught with promise, when this spirit of the times, dozing pitifully and apathetically, like a huge wet bird on a branch, suddenly and without a clear reason ... takes off in bold and joyful flight. We all hear the shush of this flight. It stirs our imagination and gives us energy: we begin to act."

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Read: 'Nuns join Saffron Revolution'

The Dams on the Salween River: Useful Links

Some more information and links for those interested in my story in this morning's paper about the campaign by the Karen and Karenni people of eastern Burma against the proposed dams on the Salween River - 'Sold down the river: tribe's home to be a valley of the dammed'.

The best source on the web is www.salweenwatch.org (although this has been crashing on me - is anyone else having this problem?). I can still access the PDF of the recent report on the dams, by a group of Karenni NGOs, 'Dammed by Burma's Generals'.

The Southeast Asia Rivers Network (SEARIN) has also done a lot of work on the subject, both in Thailand-Burma and on the upper stretches of the Salween in China, where it is known as the Nu. Their website has the PDF of their 2004 report ''The Salween Under Threat: Damming the Longest Free River in Southeast Asia'.