New Mon State Party Denied the SPDC’s Accusation on Their Soldiers
By: Loa Htaw (IMNA)
August 6, 2004
The Secretary General of the New Mon State Party (NMSP) denied the SPDC's accusation that some of NMSP soldiers were criminals because they scared people with guns and collected money.
The NMSP leader said that eight of their soldiers were accused of criminals and arrested by the SPDC authorities in Ye township, Mon State. Nai Ron Nai, Nai Tala Lawi, Nai Aung Yin and five others were arrested on June 29, 2004. “The soldiers who have been accused of criminals can be sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the SPDC authority” he added.
Nai Hong Sar, NMSP General Secretary said “ The soldiers are collecting money from our villagers but , as you know, we have never forced our people to pay money . We have collected money from our people who know their responsibilities and wanted to help us as much as they can for our national movement”.
Nai Mon Chan (not a legal name; we do not use legal names to protect their identity) said “from my experience, I have never seen NMSP soldiers scaring people with guns to get money. Sometimes, some Mon soldiers may have verbally abused the villagers when collecting money but not with guns”. He also added “ if we have money, even without any requests, we will support the NMSP without any hesitation. Some people who don’t have money can’t give any. So, it seems they are not supporting the NMSP.”
Nai Hong Sar said that it is our job to ask for help from our people in working for our national cause. For our members, raising money and asking for help from our people is a regular job. If Burmese military stops us from doing this, they mean to destroy our struggle for peace and justice.
Nai Hong Sar added, we have been collecting money supported by our people since we have entered cease-fire agreement with the government, 1995. But, this year, although we have informed the military authority about our activity, our officials were accused of criminals and arrested by the SPDC.
May be they just wanted to arrest our soldiers to intimidate us since they are not happy with our standing in the National Convention. If this is the case, they should blame us, the leaders of the party. They should not blame or create problems to our soldiers, said Nai Hong Sar.
He also said that they have asked the regime's Prime Minister, Lt. Gen. Kyin Nyunt, for unconditional release of their soldiers. But currently the Prime Minister is not in the country. So, they still have to wait for the response. But, some of their soldiers are currently very sick.
A NMSP member said if our leaders can't negotiate for the release of our eight soldiers, the rest of us would be less interested in the party's activities in the future.
Nai Hong Sar said, we hope we could negotiate with government to release our soldiers. But we can't say when they would be released.
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