Shan State News

One of Burma’s exiled newsmen was elected on Sunday, 11 November, to succeed Shan State draft charter chairman Sao Seng Suk who passed away almost 3 months ago.

The editor in chief of the Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) Khuensai Jaiyen “reluctantly” became chairman of the Shan State Constitution Drafting Commission (SSCDC) after the conference’s first choice Khun Okker declined the nomination. The PaO legal expert told the 45 participants, special guests and observers he was a bad choice. “I was born and grew up outside Shan State in Thaton,” he explained. “This should be a job for a native.”

Khun Okker is also deeply involved in drafting the Opposition’s answer to the ruling junta’s draft charter.

Others who were elected to lead the Shan State constitution drafting are Shirley Hseng (Kachin), Na Ve Bon (Lahu), Nang Hseng Noung (Women), Nang Hseng Zawm (Shan), Khun Okker (PaO and constitutional consultant), Ta Ai Nyunt (Wa), Na Hti (Lisu), Jaha (Lahu), Min Khant (Kayan) and Asa Mayi (Akha).

Nine constitutional guidelines were also laid down by the three day consultation conference, 9-11 November, for the drafters to follow in a major expansion from the original two guidelines set out in 2000:

A federal structure (2000)
A democratic decentralized administrative system (2000)
Sovereign power derives from the people of Shan State
To be a member state of a genuine federal union with other states
To guarantee equality among the Shan State’s ethnic nationalities
To guarantee ethnic minority rights
To guarantee basic human rights and gender equality
To practise a multi-party democratic system
To be a secular state

Khuensai denies he has become a politician. “I’m only fulfilling my duty as a citizen of Shan State,” he said. “I don’t think I’m made for the rough and tumble of politics.”

Shan State is one of Burma’s non-Burman states that have been drafting state constitutions since 2000. Under the leadership of the late Sao Seng Suk (1935-2007), it has already drawn up its first draft. The second draft is to be completed by the end of 2008.

Source : S.H.A.N.

The northern border provinces of Thailand have been declared a disaster area following freezing temperatures which have hit rural residents and recent refugees from Burma especially hard.

The Mae Hong Son provincial office said temperatures hovered around 15 Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) in Mae Hong Son city and temperatures were below freezing in more mountainous areas, including the border area of the Shan, Karen and Karenni states in Burma. Tak Province in Thailand was also declared a disaster area.

The temperature in Thailand 's Pangmapha District, where an unofficial Shan refugee camp is located, was below 10 Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) according to a provincial report on Wednesday.

A provincial official told The Irrawaddy there could be more than 100,000 people in the province in need of warm clothes and blankets. Almost all are ethnic villagers who live in rural areas or along the border with Burma .

Donations of clothing or blankets can be made to the Mae Hong Son or Tak provincial offices.

Heavy morning fog made road transportation difficult in many areas. Visibility was limited to 20 to 30 meters, according to reports.

In rural areas, many school children who do not have warm winter clothes were forced to attend classes outside in the sunlight.

Shet Reh, a Karenni refugee in Nai Soi Camp, Karenni 1, Maung District of Mae Hong Son Province, said the cold weather was especially hard on 300 newly arrived Burmese refugees who appeared with little or no possessions.

"The weather is getting cold very fast," he said. "Refugees who arrived in the camp this year don't have enough warm clothes and blankets." Refugees who have lived in the camp for a longer period have already received blankets and winter clothing from NGOs, he said.

The refugees' living conditions should improve as the public becomes more aware of their situation. The winter weather is expected to continue until late February.

Source :

THERE MUST BE A WAY - By Feraya

Is there no way to stop them doing what they do?
Is there no way to stop them hurting so many people?
There must be a way to show them that their way is wrong
There must be a way to make them change their way of thinking…

Is there no way to show them the right way to do things?
Is there no way to show them the right way to be?
There must be a way to let them see that there is an alternative
There must be a way to change their mindset…

Is there no way to persuade them to listen?
Is there no way to persuade them to care?
There must be a way to encourage them to be wise
There must be a way to show them how to solve their problems
There must be a way to tell them things cannot go on this way.

Everything they do should not be motivated by greed or hatred
And citizen's lives regarded as less than worthless
Mindless and inhumane, cruel and savage,
They kill human beings without any qualms
For goodness sake, how much longer shall we put up with this?

We can go on hoping and praying forever
But haven't we waited long enough?
Yes, for decades we have tried almost everything
We have tried to reason with them to no avail,
We have collected petitions,
We have demonstrated,
We have written to world leaders,
We have been put in jail,
We have been tortured,
We have been raped,
Our friends have died, fighting for their rights,
And all the efforts we have put into our cause,
Haven't brought us to our goal.

How much longer can we afford to be patient?
How much longer do we have to wait?
Haven't we been patient long enough?
Haven't we waited long enough?
How many more people will have to suffer without reason?
How many more innocent people will have to die for nothing?
How many more decades do we want to put up with them?
Isn't it high time we did something radical to stop all this?

I don't want to be patient any longer
I don't want to have to wait any longer
I don't want more innocent people to suffer
I don't want more people to die at their hands.

There is a saying which is sad but often true:-
“If we always do what we have always done,
We will always get what we have always got.”

Published on February 8, 2007

Rebel strongman Yawd Serk hopes for unity among ethnic minorities

Charismatic Shan rebel army leader Colonel Yawd Serk has strengthened alliances with armed ethnic minorities along the Thai-Burma border.

Yawd Serk said the United Wa State Army (UWSA) - which currently backs a counter-insurgency by the Burma Army against his Shan State Army (SSA) - had offered ties.

Yawd Serk was speaking at celebrations he said marked 60 years of Shan resistance at its Doi Tai Leang stronghold across the border from Mae Hong Son.

The SSA in various guises has been fighting Burmese forces for more than 48 years.

He said the SSA will "never give up its fight for independence from Burma".

The celebrations were held under heavy guard. Wa fighters are near and their relationship with the junta causes anxiety.

Yawd Serk formed his force after his ex-boss and drug lord Khun Sa surrendered in January 1996.

The name SSA has been "borrowed" from the Shan army of earlier times. The SSA has had weapons and troop exchanges with ethnic groups along the Thai-Burma border, including the Karen National Progressive Party.

"I have sent my troops to help the Karen to fight the Burmese on more than 10 occasions in past years," he told reporters after the ceremony.

He said he had been in contact with the UWSA in a peace bid. He said the Wa never wanted to fight the Shan.

"But, Burma has pressured the Wa against its will to fight us," he said. He asserted a recent engagement was led by a "low-level" Wa commander without approval or acknowledgement of Wa leaders at Panghsang. And, a Wa attack under the command of "drug dealer Wei Hsueh Kang last year was made without consent of leaders in Panghsang", he said.

The Shan want to see unity among ethnic minorities in their struggle with the junta and Yawd Serk welcomes a pact with the Wa.

He will even entertain an association with Wei Hsueh Kang - wanted by both the United States and Thailand for drug offences.

"If they stop their drug business and concentrate only on the struggle for independence, we welcome them," Yawd Serk said.

Washington describes Wei Hsueh Kang as a "significant foreign narcotics trafficker" as specified by the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.

The senior UWSA commander was named in May 2003 as a drugs lord and a US$2 million (Bt71.5 million) bounty placed on his head.

Known in Thailand as Somboon Kradumporn, he jumped bail while on trial for drugs offences in Thailand. Bangkok has failed to have him extradited.

Wiwatchai Somkham

The Nation

Colonel Yawd Serk describes himself as "a simple man" who wants his people to come back to Burma to help him fight for independence. He is a small man with a pitted face and spectacles, but he has a larger presence as a leader.

He drums his fingers slowly as he listens to a question. He thinks carefully before he speaks. "The Shan people have been forced to relocate and forced to work as slaves by the Burmese Army", he says with obvious conviction.

Yawd says independence and freedom for Burma's ethnic minorities depend on educating and training Shan, Karenni, Chin and other ethnic minorities against a common enemy, the Burmese dictatorship and its State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

"The SPDC has no morals", says Yawd. "They do not teach their soldiers skills; they cannot develop the country. All the SPDC leaders want is power and control where we have unity."

He says: "We will never surrender".
Surrender, it seems, is not part of the Shan vocabulary. There are Shan State Army (SSA) camps in various pockets along the northern Thai-Burmese border. They watch for not only the SPDC but for the United Wa State Army, a 20,000-strong drug-producing outfit that entered into a cease-fire agreement with the Rangoon government in 1989. Wa fighters are believed to be descendants of head-hunters who are concentrated along Burma's border with China.

The international community blamed the UWSA for much of its drug woes. Some members even accused the Burmese dictators of turning a blind eye to drug trafficking.

The 1989 cease-fire agreement, orchestrated by Burma's intelligence chief Lt-General Khin Nyunt, was organised to neutralise the powerful Wa army, which had enough arms to last at least a decade. However, the former intelligence chief is now under house arrest, and relations between the UWSA and the SPDC have taken a downturn, though not to the point of fighting.

Yawd said he was willing to join forces with the UWSA, extending an olive branch to the Wa and perhaps cashing in on the tensions between the UWSA and the SPDC.

"The Wa do not love the SPDC," he said. "I hope one day we will achieve cooperation with them, coming together to fight the SPDC. First I want the Shan State people to have the right of self-determination."

A senior leader of the Karenni National Progressive Party, Rimond Htoo, agrees with Yawd, saying it is time to join hands to fight their common enemy, and while the KNPP and the SSA may be moving closer, the Karen National Union recently suffered an internal split when its 7th Brigade broke away and signed a cease-fire agreement with the SPDC.

The KNPP leader says the Karenni people "are not ones to fight but are peaceful in nature".

"The SPDC arrive in our villages, they take everything, they rape our women and burn down our houses", says the KNPP leader, sitting alongside Yawd after Shan National Day celebrations.

Rimond praised Yawd for the SSA's support, saying SSA fighters had helped the KNPP on the battlefield.

"They want to destroy all ethnicity; they want all ethnic minorities gone. The SPDC wants us to separate and fight each other. We must be very careful and organise for unity," he said.

More than 1000 people live at Loi Tai Leng. There is no running water, and water for the Shan soldiers and refugee families has to be brought up the mountain by truck each day.

The Shan say the SPDC will never be able to infiltrate this mountaintop camp, where over 400 refugees have been sheltering since 2000 after fleeing villages burnt by the SPDC. As part of the SPDC's strategy to deny the rebels support, many of the villagers in various pockets of Shan State have been forcibly relocated to areas designated by the government.

The head of the refugee camp in this SSA stronghold, Wa Ling, says he wants to return to his home but it is not safe. "The soldiers protect us here," he says.

Meanwhile, standing behind barbed-wire entanglements and trenches looking through binoculars as the Wa build a bunker, SSA's Major Wanlee watches a group of Wa soldiers from a lookout known as Kong Ka on the border of what is now regarded as secure Shan territory.

"I am not afraid to suffer, and I will die to achieve freedom," says the major, who took up arms 21 years ago when he was just 16.

While the SSA and the KNPP are forging closer ties, an alliance with the Wa may be a pipe dream. In April 2005 this lookout, where 15 SSA soldiers now stand guard, was the scene of heavy fighting against the UWSA and the Burmese Army. Wanlee says the battle lasted almost a month.

He said UWSA fighters were scrambling up the mountain firing their machineguns while the Burmese fired mortar rounds.

Mortar shells are scattered on the ground, and the huts where Shan soldiers sleep are scarred by machinegun bullets.

Wanlee shows off one of the Shan's own weapons, a steel-pronged anti-personnel device the size of a fist that pierces the foot of any soldier who steps on it.

Eventually the UWSA retreated, waving their white flags further down the hill.

"Everyone hopes for peace and for our country to have freedom," says the Major, "but we must protect our people, and this is the reason I carry my gun. I hold my gun to defend my people and my land.

"If they came with flowers we would reply with flowers, but if they come with guns we will fight back with guns."

Alice Coster

The Nation

DOI TAI LAENG, BURMA

Newsman becomes new Shan charter man

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