CHIN COMMUNITY (GERMANY)
STATEMENT ON RUMOURS ABOUT
CHIN SOLDIERS SHOOTING AT DEMONSTRATORS IN BURMA
CCG ev -statement-in-burmese-version
The Rumour
Ever since the first massacre of the students in 1962, General Ne Win’s Military Intelligent Service used to spread words about Chin soldiers shooting at demonstrators. The same thing happened during the 1974 Labor and U Thant Strikes and again during the 1988 uprisings after troops mowed down hundreds of demonstrators. This is part of Ne Win’s stratagem to reduce public hatred towards him or his Burma Army and to instill ethnic hatreds among the oppressed peoples.
This stratagem prove to be successful as some of our Burman brothers believe thoserumours and even spread the word further, unwittingly serving the interest of themilitary dictators . This is due to total ignorant of what happened inside the Burma Army under General Ne Win.
The Reality
Ever since the care-taker government period in 1958-1960 General Ne Win abolishedthe British-era ethnic based battalions and turned the Burma Army into mixed-ethnicbattalions with the majority made up of ethnic Burmans. But Ne Win was careful enough not to eliminate the names of these battalions, so the names 1st,2nd or 3rd. Chin Rifles remains even though these battalions are no more made up of Chins oldiers.The majority of soldiers in any battalion is the Burman soldiers and the Chinsoldiers if they ever exist are made up of 20 to 30 or even less in each of thesebattalions. It was Ne Win’s strategy to use soldiers bearing the badges and uniformsof Chin battalions to crack down whenever unrest occurred. So, many people who are not aware of the changes inside the Army easily believe the Chin soldiers areshooting.
