More eyewitnesses fled to Thailand

DVB ( July 20,2003 )

It is reported that two more eyewitnesses of May 30 Dipeyin assault have arrived at Thailand on the 20th of June. They are Ko Phoe Zaw, a NLD member of Htun Tone Ward, Mandalay and Ko Chit Sann, a NLD member of Mandalay Southwest Township.

DVB's Naw Nandar Chan reports as follow:

Ko Chit Sann who was given the responsibility to drive one of the cars in Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade described how the NLD supporters were attacked near Kyiywa Village as follows:

Ko Chit Sann : I was the driver of the 6th or 7th car of the motorcade. I heard that two monks stopped Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s car. Then, I stopped my car. From behind of us, I heard some people shouting, ‘beat them! Kill them! We will beat the Indian wife [abusive name used by the SPDC for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi] to death with sticks who travelled on the tarmac roads and the bridges we built,’ they said. They were using these uncivilised and crude terminologies. At the same time, they came to bash and attack our cars. When I looked through my back mirror, two people fell down on the stone road after they were pierced with iron spikes. At the same time, someone on my left was prodded and attacked with something and he shouted ‘ah’. Then, they broke the front windscreen of my car. I tried to escape. It was not easy. I held the jack of my car door and kicked it open. The person on my right also collapsed. I tried to pull out the man who was on my left, but I was not able to do so. There was no movement from the person. While I was doing that one of the thugs kicked me from behind. Then someone bashed my right leg while I was in the car. I fled with pains…

He also described the people who participated in the assault as follows:

Ko Chit Sann : They used the monks to order the USDA members and other thugs for assaults. Mind you, they are fake monks. They are not the real ones. The reason is we could tell the differences between the fake monks from the real ones. Real monks always keep their robes on their bodies very tidily. The fake ones always keep theirs in disarray and their bald heads have the sign of being freshly shaven. It’s clear that they are fake monks.

He also described what he saw during his escape thus:

Ko Chit Sann : I was wondering what they would keep doing at the killing field. They really did work with systematic strategy. It was a moonless night. Therefore, they used car headlights to attack us. There were also some limelight or searchlights on trees. They highlighted us with big light bulbs and carbon fluorescent lights. When it first happened, they trailed us from Monywa, in the direction of the Northwest Military Command with four DYNA pick-ups. And there were also 2 four wheel drives. There were two officers on them. On DYNA pick-ups were police with shields and truncheons and two officers. They ordered their followers to load all the corpses and the wounded on the cars. They just threw and dumped all the people who were unable to get up onto the cars. Four of our cars were seized there. They dumped two of them in the paddy fields. The remaining two were set up as if they were involved in a head on collision. The two officers then photographed and recorded the scene with their video cameras and the like. We were watching them the whole night until dawn. We saw municipal workers clean all the torn clothing, broken sticks and blood stains.

The SPDC said in a statement that only four people were killed during the assault. But Ko Chit Sann insisted that the figures are not correct:

Ko Chit Sann : The figure of 4 dead people must be from madmen. There were more than four. I don’t know the exact number of people who were wounded, but there were more than 70 people who were killed. The two who were loaded onto my car were already dead. There was another corpse on another car.