Ethnic groups ordered to distinguish weapons after bombing
Tue 30 Jun 2009, Kon Hadae,IMNA
Following a bomb blast in Three Pagodas Pass (TPP) township, Burmese government authorities ordered the armed members of three ethnic groups to color their rifle butts in order to distinguish each group.
The explosion occurred on June 28th in TPP town at 8:20 and 8:33 PM, when two bombs exploded, one at the entrance to Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 32 base, and the other detonated inside the special branch police office compound.
New Mon State Party (NMSP) soldiers were ordered to paint their rifle butts in red, while the Karen Peace Front (KPF) members had to paint theirs in blue, and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army DKBA were made to color their rifle butts yellow, according to Karen Peace Force officer. Also SPDC authorities have placed a curfew on residents, restringing their travel to no later then 6 PM, through the areas where the 2 bombs detonated.
The order to apply the distinguishing colors came yesterday from State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) authorities during a meeting arranged by LIB No. 32, with armed group leaders and quarter headmen at the battalion headquarters.
“They [SPDC] said, that currently security is not so good here [at TPP], and that if they see color on ethnics guns, they [SPDC] would be easily able to recognize which group the soldier came from. It is a way to know an enemy from a friend”, an NMSP member who attended the meeting told IMNA. Last night, the SPDC asked these three armed ethnic groups to form a joint security force with them, prior to going on patrol. Two of the ethnic armed groups, the DKBA and the KPF, joined the patrol with the SPDC. While the NMSP was asked to join the force, they did not patrol with SPDC joint security force, according to a resident who is close to members of the NMSP. He did not know why NMSP forces did not want to joint SPDC patrol.
This is not the first time SPDC forces have conducted joint patrols with area ethnic armed groups. When a bomb exploded on May 27th in Moulmein, the SPDC increased security by conducting joint patrols in TPP. At the time only DKBA and KPF forces were invited to join the joint security force.
During the meeting SPDC authorities also ordered quarter headmen to make lists of motorbikes numbers in their quarters, and to order motorbikes owners to put their quarter name on the back of their motorbike. SPDC authorities speculated that the bombs were thrown by motorbike drivers. TPP is divided in to 4 quarters, each with its own headman.
Another resident of TPP town said, “They [SPDC] ordered residents to do this because, if a stranger arrives who is not from the TPP town, the SPDC will easily know.”
