US embassy cable - 03RANGOON1429

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 001429 
 
SIPDIS 
 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, BM, ASSK, NLD 
SUBJECT: ANATOMY OF A BURMESE POLITICAL BLOOD BATH 
 
REF: RANGOON 658 
 
Classified By: COM CARMEN M. MARTINEZ for Reasons 1.5 (B,D) 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY:  Additional information on the May 30 Depeyin 
attack continues to emerge from victims and eyewitnesses, 
providing new context and clarity to the regime's true role 
in the premeditated assault on ASSK and the NLD.  On November 
4, NLD members smuggled to us video footage of Aung San Suu 
Kyi (ASSK) and the NLD convoy, taken in the days and hours 
preceding the attack, which portrays the phenomenal support 
the NLD leader enjoys in Burma's hinterland as well as clear 
evidence of the aggressive position authorities took against 
her convoy.  New testimony obtained in late October from 
three wounded survivors also underscores the regime's direct 
role in facilitating the attack, which resulted in the 
political killings of at least 6 NLD members, an unknown 
number of supporters, and perhaps as many as 70 members of 
the convoy's self-appointed security escort of motorcycle 
outriders.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Video Evidence: The Eve of the May 30 Attack 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
2. (C)  On November 4, NLD supporters at the behest of ASSK 
smuggled a videotape to the U.S. Embassy, requesting that it 
be delivered to UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Pinheiro. 
The one-hour tape, filmed by NLD cameramen, documents the 
final four days of ASSK's swing through northern Burma and 
ends the night of May 29, just 24 hours before the deadly May 
30 attack on the NLD convoy.  Juxtaposed against footage of 
many thousands of cheering villagers and townspeople, who 
gathered to welcome ASSK and listen to her speeches, are 
numerous shots of government security forces and USDA 
"protesters" who grew in numbers over the course of the trip 
to harass the passing NLD convoy. 
 
3. (C) In one scene on the video, government-sponsored 
protesters half-heartedly waved anti-NLD signs; however, 
local villagers berated the protesters and pulled down their 
signs, prompting USDA minders to rush in and prod the 
protesters to keep in line.  In one small village, the camera 
records a large group of protesters who suddenly drop their 
anti-NLD signs, rush across the road to join NLD supporters, 
and spontaneously join in singing the Burmese National Anthem 
as a sign of support for the convoy.  Further footage 
portrays USDA thugs increasingly angry and abusive as the 
convoy made its way through small towns and villages on the 
planned return trip to Rangoon. 
 
4. (C) The videotape also shows footage of government 
security forces maintaining a constant presence along the 
convoy route and at village stops, including military 
intelligence and police vans, trucks, motorcycles, and jeeps 
littering rural roadsides.  By the time the NLD convoy 
reached Myin Mu in Sagaing Division during mid-day on May 29, 
the USDA had dramatically increased its numbers and added 
several packed tour buses, light trucks, and sedans to its 
own parallel convoy.  As ASSK and her delegation reached the 
outskirts of Monywa, the last major town on the route before 
the attack in Depeyin, hundreds of young motorcycle riders 
joined the NLD's twelve-vehicle convoy to act as a buffer 
against the USDA convoy.  Finally, as the NLD convoy entered 
Monywa that evening, authorities cut off the town's 
electricity.  The final scene of the tape shows a massive, 
candle-lit crowd of thousands welcoming the NLD convoy into 
an eerily darkened downtown Monywa. 
 
5. (C)  The Embassy showed the tape with accompanying 
translation to visiting UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur 
Paulo Pinheiro on November 6 during his visit to Rangoon. 
Pinheiro was taken aback by the huge size of the crowds 
turning out in every town and village through which the NLD 
convoy passed.  He had previously been under the impression 
that the NLD delegation was being greeted at every stop by 
masses of anti-NLD protesters and that very few locals were 
supporting the NLD.  He felt strongly that this tape should 
be shown to ASEAN leaders, who to this point don't believe 
ASSK has any popularity left in Burma.  He advised that 
Razali should see the tape and use it in further briefings 
with ASEAN.  Pinheiro will see that international television 
media outlets receive a copy of the tape when he leaves Burma. 
 
Survivors: Witnesses to the Blood Bath 
-------------------------------------- 
 
6. (C) On October 30, three survivors of the May 30 attack 
secretly traveled to Rangoon to give their eyewitness 
 
SIPDIS 
accounts to Embassy officers.  All three showed us permanent 
wounds from the attack, including scars, punctures, and 
broken bones.  The three survivors, NLD members based in 
Mandalay, were in the first and third cars immediately behind 
ASSK's vehicle during the attack on May 30.  Their testimony 
picks up the story from where the videotape ends.  At dusk on 
May 30, ASSK, eleven additional NLD cars, a truck full of 
pro-NLD monks, and hundreds of volunteer pro-NLD security 
"outriders" left Monywa and arrived at Kyi village.  Earlier 
in the day, ASSK, apparently aware of the increasingly 
aggressive posture of the USDA and local authorities, had 
ordered her entire delegation to use passive resistance if 
attacked. 
 
7. (C) As the convoy passed through Kyi village, a local monk 
ran up and asked ASSK if she would address the villagers, 
adding that they had been waiting for her all day.  NLD Vice 
Chairman U Tin Oo, in the lead car, pulled over to wait about 
30 yards further down the road.  At that moment, a column of 
USDA buses, trucks, and sedans that had tailed the NLD convoy 
for the previous three hours stopped and unloaded.  Hundreds, 
possibly thousands, of USDA members armed with bamboo staves, 
sharpened wooden stakes, and slingshots began attacking 
villagers and motorcycle outriders at the rear of the convoy. 
 The villagers fought back, trying to seize weapons from the 
USDA attackers.  Some members of the NLD convoy stepped out 
of their cars and could see the melee illuminated by 
headlights from trucks in the rear.  After five minutes, the 
USDA attackers began attacking the NLD convoy itself, 
advancing forward on both sides of the road firing bicycle 
spokes from the slingshots and using their weapons to beat 
the occupants of each successive NLD car. 
 
8. (C) According to one of the eyewitnesses, Kin Maung Thaun, 
NLD Mandalay Division Executive Member and a passenger in the 
third car behind ASSK's vehicle, was hit several times in the 
head by a USDA youth who pleaded with him, "Uncle, please lie 
down and pretend you are dead; I was told to kill you."  Kin 
Maung Thaun slumped down as instructed, while the attackers, 
always aiming at the head, badly beat four women and killed 
two other men in his car.  Before the USDA reached the lead 
car, eight of ASSK's bodyguards surrounded her but were 
either beaten to the ground or were forced off into nearby 
rice paddies.  The wounded driver from Kin Maung Thaun's car 
saw the USDA smash ASSK's windshield, so he ran forward to 
help protect her.  The USDA beat him, breaking his right arm, 
and pierced him above the eye with a bicycle spoke.  When the 
driver fell down, the attackers wrenched his broken arm and 
continued beating him for 10 minutes.  Thirty minutes into 
the attack, ASSK's own driver, with ASSK still unscathed but 
now unprotected, sped her away from the attack scene and to 
the next village (Note: ASSK was then detained by local 
authorities.  End note). 
 
9. (C) After ASSK safely escaped the scene, USDA attackers 
shifted from beating and killing to looting the NLD vehicles. 
 Two hours after the attack began, a USDA leader blew a 
whistle that sounded retreat to the attackers and waiting 
buses.  Kin Maung Thaun, the NLD Mandalay official, then 
climbed out of his car and saw three dead NLD members in the 
car behind his.  He then hid with three other NLD men in a 
rice paddy about 80 yards from the head of the NLD convoy. 
Around 11:30 PM, about 1.5 hours after the USDA mob had left, 
military and riot police forces arrived and began to clean up 
the attack site, washing down the road and arranging the NLD 
vehicles to look as if they had been in accidents.  Riot 
police used their shields to bring sand to cover the diesel 
and blood stains on the road surface.  Kin Maung Thaun then 
watched them use a blanket to load at least fifteen severely 
wounded and dead onto a waiting truck.  Around 3:00 AM on May 
31, a group of high level officials arrived from Monywa, 
slowly passed alongside the destroyed NLD convoy, and left 
the scene. 
 
Comment:  A Well-Planned Attack 
------------------------------- 
 
10. (C) The new video and eyewitness testimony provides more 
clarity on the methodology the regime used to attack and shut 
down the NLD in May.  As the NLD's trip progressed through 
Mandalay and Sagaing Divisions, and as ASSK drew larger and 
larger crowds even in the face of ever-stiffer government and 
USDA intimidation, the regime tried increasingly hostile and 
aggressive tactics with the hopes of dissuading the NLD from 
continuing.  This in turn generated more support for the NLD 
in each town and village, and eventually led to hundreds of 
NLD supporters on motorcycles joining to provide security 
from the growing USDA menace.  Faced with the huge 
candlelight reception in Monywa on May 29th, held in the face 
of more government and USDA intimidation, the regime then 
chose not to risk attacking the NLD in a public area, and 
instead safely attacked in a remote village on a desolate 
stretch of road where very little civil population was 
available to rise up and come to her defense. 
 
11. (C) The USDA youth telling the older NLD member to 
"pretend you are dead, uncle," because he was ordered to kill 
him, is compelling evidence that the regime, through its 
agents in the USDA, ordered these people killed for political 
reasons.  This conclusion is further supported by the 
government security forces being continuously present 
throughout the entire trip up to Monywa after which they 
suddenly disappeared.  The regime held back its security 
forces so the USDA could attack and destroy the NLD convoy, 
kill supporters, neutralize NLD leadership, and leave the 
government with plausible deniability.  We have provided 
Pinheiro with both the video tape and pictures of the wounded 
survivors so he will have a fuller understanding of the 
context surrounding the May 30 human attack.  END COMMENT. 
Martinez