They concluded the captives had been tied to the trees, tortured, stabbed and burned, before being killed.
“The soldiers were so severely beaten up that their bodies were just a pile of broken bones,” the report describes. “Their dead bodies were stamped on and crushed into the mud near a creek.”
The victims were named as: Second Lt. Naw Seng, Warrant Officer Gam Seng, Lance Corporal Aik Nyi, private soldiers Nhkum Ban Aung Mai and Ma Aik Nai. One civilian was a Kachin man, Zum Zang Hawng Lum, who was the nephew of Brig-Gen James Lum Dung, the then head commander of KIA Brigade 4 operating in northern Shan State. The other civilian was identified only as a Chinese man.
In his interview with The Irrawaddy in Laiza last week, Brig-Gen James Lum Dung—who took up arms against the Burmese troops in 1961 and retired as the KIA regional military commander in 2007—said the killings were a deliberate provocation by the Burmese troops under the supervision of Tin Aung Myint Oo.
“Their motive was to drive our troops out of Shan State,” said James Lum Dung. “Tin Aung Myint Oo was mainly responsible for these killings.”
In seeking an explanation for the killings, James Lum Dung said he went to Lashio in Shan State in 2001 to confront Tin Aung Myint Oo.
“He made no response whatsoever when I told him about the unprovoked massacres, “ James Lum Dung said. “Instead, he offered me 1,000,000 kyat [US $1,000]. I did not accept it.
“We were furious about what had happened, but our leaders decided to wait for the completion of the constitution-drafting process,” he said, referring to the military-sponsored constitution that was not completed until 2008, and which was later rejected by the Kachin leadership for its exclusion of rights for ethnic minorities.
Documentation for a third incident alleged to have taken place in August 2005 in Hwak Kai village in the Kutkai district of Muse Township was presented by the KIA to The Irrawaddy. By this time, Tin Aung Myint Oo was no longer regional commander; Maj-Gen Myint Hlaing, the current minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, was overseeing operations.
Falsely accused of illegally collecting taxes from local traders, the KIA's administrative officer U Sang Lu, 50, was arrested and taken away by Col. San Shwe Thar of the Burmese army's Northeast Regional Command.
U Sang Lu was found dead the following day with three bullet wounds. His skull and two of his ribs were fractured, and the skin on his wrist had been torn away.
“It was a groundless murder,” the document said. “The KIO [the political wing of the KIA] has long collected tax from local businesses. U Sang Lu was performing a routine duty, but was ruthlessly killed.”
It is alleged that the following year, five KIA soldiers and one civilian were killed in cold blood by Burmese government troops, this time in the Bum Pri Bum area of Kutkai in southern Muse Township.
On Jan. 2, 2006, a Burmese army patrol of 12 soldiers led by Maj. Hla Moe from Infantry Battalion 68 allegedly arrived at a KIA administrative office in Bum Pri Bum.
“While our soldiers prepared to serve the Burmese troops with drinks, they were all shot dead in the office and in the kitchen,” the record states. The KIA document goes on to say that the Burmese unit immediately called in reinforcements, and prevented the KIA from entering the area and collecting the remains.
Led by Brig-Gen Gun Maw, who is the current KIA deputy military chief, a Kachin military delegation met with Burmese army officers and asked to recover the bodies of the murdered KIA soldiers. They were permitted to collect the bodies on Jan. 6 only to find the bodies had already been cremated. Gun Maw said they were presented with “bags of ashes.”
The victims were recorded in the KIA records as: administrative officer Laban Gam Hpang, Sergeant Brang Mai, office staffers Zahkwng Kawang Hkam, Maran Tu Shan and Brang Shawng, and a civilian from the village named as Aik Nyunt.
Col. Zau Raw, the current commander of KIA Brigade 4 operating in Shan State, told The Irrawaddy he clearly recalls the incident in 2006. He said the Burmese military officials later offered up an excuse that the KIA soldiers were mistaken for members of an armed militia which had not signed a ceasefire agreement with the government.
“We suppressed our emotions in those days, because we were waiting for some sort of political result from the constitution,” said Zau Raw, adding that he remembers crying as he led the funeral for the slaughtered men.
Zau Raw was one of the KIA's highest ranking officials who participated in the constitution-drafting process.