SLORC SEEKS TO CREATE BAD BLOOD AMONG THE SHAN

SLORC SEEKS TO CREATE BAD BLOOD AMONG THE SHAN

Independence 10, June, 1995

S.H.A.N COMMENTARY

Encouraged by their success in dividing the Karen National Union (KNU) by exploiting the existing tensions between the Buddhist and Christian Karens which culminated in the seizure of the Karen strongholds, the Burmese have started a propaganda campaign against the Shans in order to throw bad blood between Shans of Chinese origin and those of non-Chinese blood. This stratagem might have worked but for several reasons:

1. Officers in the Mong Tai Army are selected not on the basis of "who they are" but on "what they can do to further the cause". There is discrimination not in terms of race, social status, language or religion, but in terms of personal disposition and merit. This has been a long-adhered-to practice in the MTA.

2. When General Khin Nyunt questioned the Shan nationalism of Khun Sa, he was forgetting that their paramount leader, U Ne Win, was of Hakka Chinese origin. 

3. Soldiers and people alike jeered when the propaganda leaflet issued by the SLORC asked: "More than 300 Shans ---- their blood at Mongkyawt (the town in Kengtung Province, the vicinity of which had been a major battleground in May-June, 1994), but can anyone count the casualties of Chinese soldiers up to ten?" This ill-devised ploy backfired, because as one soldier retorted: "Since this is a Shan army, should it be unusual that less Chinese were killed than Shans?"

4. In Shan history, a Shan movement led by a non-Shan is not without precedent. General Taksin, who led Thailand, then Siam, into victory over the Burmese after the fall of Ayuddya in the 18th century is a well-known example. His Chinese family name was Cheng. As long it is the piece of goods one needs, who cares who delivers? Foreign governments may want Khun Sa, but they obviously do not need him. The Shan people may or may not want him, but they are desperately in need of him and his services, in order to free themselves from the Burmese yoke. The Shan people hope foreign governments can wait until SLORC is removed and the people will need him no more. 

5. Nevertheless, the Burmese would still have stood a chance of success had their stratagem of "frying pork with pork fat" been ignored by the Shans. Already measures have been taken and are being implemented to ensure that Shan unity as forged by General Kornzurng in 1983 remain intact and strong. 

The Burmese also tried another ploy --- to exploit the death of Sai Lek, the prominent Shan leader, on 7 January this year and blame it on Khun Sa. The colonel's premature demise was, as confirmed by foreign doctors, through blood tests, of toxemia - blood poisoning - caused by staphylococcus aureus, which turns food that has been consumed into poison. He had already experienced the malady three times since 1986 before his fateful trip from the Mao basin in the north to Homong. On this journey he had been escorted by Khun Sa's own men. Therefore, if he so wished, Sai Lek could have been killed during his two and a half month long trek south, which ran into not a few ambushes sprung by the Burmese. 

The ploy had a semblance of success when a Major Ngo Harn, who had committed a serious offense of requisitioning K. 4 million from the populace without authorization, cited "Khun Sa's treacherous poisoning of Sai Lek" as his reason for joining with the cease-fire group of SSA in April. However, it is noteworthy that no other MTA units followed in his steps.