Black Friday Eyewitnesses escape to Thailand

DVB ( July 4, 2003 )

Two eyewitnesses of the murderous assaults on NLD supporters on the 30th of May at Dipeyin in Upper Burma have escaped to the Thai capital Bangkok today.

They are 50 year-old, U Khin Zaw of the Northwest Township and the 26 year-old Ko Wunna Maung of Htun-Tone Ward in Mandalay. They testified what they saw on Black Friday to the Thai parliament today.

They said that the incident did not occur accidentally but it is clear that the assault was systematically planned by the military government. They also confirmed that the death toll could be up to 70:

U Khin Zaw : ‘When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade arrived near Kyi Ywa, it was stopped. I was at the rear end of the motorcade. Behind us, there were some fake monks who were wearing some red badges on their arms.

And people who were carrying iron poles, wooden poles and bamboo poles swore at Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as the wife of an Indian and swore at the local people as people who want to be the relatives of Indians and other unpleasant expletives and terms.

The local people who were welcoming and supporting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi replied to them with ‘you are the real destructive elements and the axe-handles [lapdogs] of the regime’ and the like and they started to beat up the villagers who said those words straight away.

At the moment, two people from my township died.

Ko Wunna Maung of Htun Tone Township described the condition of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo’s conditions as follows:

Ko Wunna Maung : People were all bloody. We were all broken [wounded]. I was lucky to have escaped. I was to the right of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s car. On the left hand side, there were more people protecting her. They attacked those people who were protecting her. They didn’t actually attack Daw Aung San Suu Kyi but they smashed the glass and thrust a metal skewer into the car. I don’t know whether she was hit because it was dark. U Tin Oo was also beaten. I saw him being beaten once in front. He was wounded while they were going for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. People in the back were all down on the ground with their bloody bodies. They kept on hitting people around the place…Then, the people who could still shout told her [Daw Aung San Suu Kyi] to escape. ‘Run, aunty, run,’ we said. She didn’t say anything. Kyaw Soe Linn, the driver just drove the car away. Then, we also fled. I bumped into their people who were lying in wait for us. They were chasing us like animals. They also beat up the people who were on the motorbikes in front of us. They dragged them down from their bikes and beat them up. We had to drive our car into the paddy-fields. We had to sleep in the paddy-field during the night. At about ten, we heard spurts of gunshots. We saw burning cars from the paddy-fields. I don’t know who was alive and who was dead. All of them were lying flat on the ground with flowing blood.

They planned to give the details of what they saw in a news conference but it was cancelled due to the security situation. At the moment, both of them are taking refuge in the office of UNHCR.