Shan couple earns 3 R’s

A Shan couple on their way back to their hometown were “robbed, raped and rubbed out” by a Burma Army unit on the Thai-Burma border, report sources from Fang, 150 km north of Chiangmai.

The twosome, Sai Nee, 24 (son of Sai Htun and Nang Nawng) and Nang Hpid, 28 (daughter of Sai Muling and Nang Man), had crossed the border into Monghsat township at Tambon Thaton, Mae Ai District, Chiangmai Province on 17 July and were not heard of until a few days later when the bloated remains of Sai Nee was found floating on the river Kok near Banmai Mawkjarm, south of Thaton. The clothes he wore were recognized by his sister-in-law Nang Pang, who lives in Thailand.

Villagers in Piangkham, opposite Thaton, were informed by the company commander (named identified) from the Monglwe based Infantry Battalion 293 five days later that two agents, one male and the other female, sent by Col Yawdserk’s Shan State Army “South” were intercepted on 17 August, but both had made their escape.

Two soldiers later confided to some villagers that Sai Nee was beaten to death after finding 50,000 baht ($ 1,250) among their belongings. “His body was thrown into the Kok,” one soldier was quoted as saying. “His wife was then taken to the company commander’s billets, where she was bound up and molested by him. The commander later put her to death.”

Sai Nee and Nang Hpid were from Wanlao, Kunhing township, southern Shan State. They had been in Thailand for six years before returning to their homeland only to stumble on to a tragic end.

The Burma Army has been consistently charged by rights groups as a blatant violator of human rights.