The identity of individuals and groups, who have falsely accused members of the Myanmar Armed Forces of the rape of Shan women now exposed.
[ 26th August, 2002 ]

A press conference attended by local and foreign news correspondents was held at the Armed Forces Guest House on Inya Roadat 10 a. m. today.

Vice Chief of the Defence Services Military Intelligence Headquarters Maj. Gen. Kyaw Win, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister U Khin Maung Win, Deputy Minister for Information Brig-Gen Aung Thein, high-ranking military and government department officials, responsible officials of the News and Periodicals Department of the Ministry of Information, correspondent of Kyodo News Agency U Sein Win, Patron of the Myanmar Foreign Correspondents Club U Hla Htwe and member correspondents were all present on the occasion.

  
Col San Pwint explains at the regular press conference with local and foreign correspondents.

As explained by Col San Pwint at the meeting, armed terrorists groups such as the SURA, KNU and KNPP and other dissident groups residing in Yodaya and some western countries, in complicity with the media of Yodaya and some western countries, have consistently kept up a campaign to fabricate misinformation and hurl unsubstantiated allegations against Myanmar in order to sow misconceptions and discredit it among the international community. They have falsely accused Myanmar of infringing democratic practices, violating human rights, of using forced labour, of producing narcotic drugs, dealing in human trafficking and mistreating the ethnic races. Their latest accusation is the sexual molestation of Shan women by members of the Armed Forces. Press conferences have been held to prove with hard evidence that this latest allegation is equally unfounded. Today’s press conference is being held because our investigations have exposed with irrefutable proof the identity of the groups responsible for these false reports and the iniquity of their intentions.

The prime mover behind this latest systematic campaign of lies regarding the rape of Shan women is the renegade Han Nyaung Shwe, son of former President of the Union of Myanmar, the late Sao Shwe Thaike. Han Nyaung Shwe is the Executive Director of the dissident group that calls itself the Burma Fund. This Burma Fund acts as a sort of Think Tank for Sein Win’s NCGUB. Actually, the Burma Fund is a group that solicits financial aid using democracy as a pretext and publishes books and pamphlets full of misinformation, deliberate false hoods and anti-Myanmar propaganda. At present it receives financial aid amounting to approximately 500 million U.S dollars yearly. Sweden, Norway and the United States of America are said to be the principal donors. Han Nyaung Shwe formerly lived in Canada. After 1988 however under the guise of a democracy activist, he managed to obtain funds from certain countries of the west, but later Canada and the U.S.A lost confidence in him due to his misappropriation of these funds. He thus had to move to Brussels in Belgium where he set up a new office under the name of the Euro Burma Office to continue his opposition movement and is therefore getting financial support from some countries. His real motive is to put the Myanmar Armed Forces Government in a quandary and ferment ethnic problems in much the same manner as Bosnia faced.

  
Maj-Gen Kyaw Win answers queries of journalists.

The allegation concerning the rape of Shan women was a plot suggested by some foreign nations. In accordance with this plot, Han Nyaung Shwe, Sein Win and the Shan Women’s Action Network, an offshoot of the SURA narco-terrorists, based in Chiangmai began to plot this terror campaign a year ago with funds received from these countries. In devising this unsavoury plot with allegations of the rape of Shan women by members of the Myanmar Armed Forces they were assisted by a British woman, Mrs. Pipa Curwen (wife of DAB member Aye Hsaung, another renegade) member of the Burma Relief Council, purportedly an NGO based in Chiangmai, Yodaya and Sao Naunt a.k.a. Hmong Lintner, wife of correspondent Bertil Lintner, notorious for writing biased articles about Myanmar. They compiled a systematic and damaging report with the title “Licence to Rape” to make it appear as though Shan women were being sexually assaulted as a matter of course by members of the Myanmar Armed Forces. They then distributed this report abroad in order to divert attention from the military defeat suffered by the SURA narco-terrorists and to let it coincide with the ASEAN Regional Forum held in Brunei.

     
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister U Khin Maung Win replied to the queries raised by local and foreign journalists.

Han Nyaung Shwe and Sein Win who are renegades from Myanmar are compelled to show how active they are in opposing the Myanmar Armed Forces to justify the handouts they receive from foreign countries and at the same time do everything possible to hurt the esteem of Myanmar in the eyes of the world.

Maj-Gen Kyaw Win and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister U Khin Maung Win replied to the queries raised by local and foreign journalists. The press conference concluded at 10.30 am.