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Myanmar's junta covered up killings, rapes, activist says

Up to 100 people were killed and an unknown number of women raped in the area of northern Myanmar where pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy was attacked on May 30, Radio Free Asia said on Friday.

A pro-government activist interviewed by the US-based station said the Yangon junta organized a cover-up to conceal the number of dead, and that the strike on the Nobel laureate's convoy was carefully organized.

The man, who was paid to take part in the incident, said on the night of May 30, a junta official hired men to dig makeshift graves in Depayin Township, northern Myanmar.

"Later, they brought the bodies, maybe 100 there, including people who were alive with serious injuries," the man said in the interview.

Scores of bodies were later taken to a local crematorium, RFA said.

Sources in Yangon told AFP in early June that the death toll from the clashes was around 80.

The US has maintained the incident was a "premeditated ambush" by government affiliated "thugs" -- an allegation disputed by the junta which said Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into custody to protect her from a disturbance.

RFA reported on Friday that villagers near the incident were forced to sign affidavits saying that only four people had been killed.

The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Senior junta officials instructed people to relate the events as a brawl between Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters and rivals who favored the junta, RFA said.

The government activist said that he had been recruited to carry out the attacks, and had agreed for fear of being denounced as an opposition member.

"The training we got was very simple. Stand firmly at the position we were assigned, one step forward and beat anyone who came within our reach, and step back," he said on RFA's Burmese service.

On the night of May 30, men and women were detained in separate halls, he said.

"Many women were raped by authorities in the hall. I learned from a friend who was in the next room on duty and secretly watched these horrible events. He said it was unfair and atrocious, but he could do nothing to help."

"We, the whole town, knew that it was a premeditated attack. But the authorities are trying to cover it up by arresting and killing those who witnessed it," he said.

Radio Free Asia is funded by the US government, and broadcasts news in 10 languages to Asian countries which lack independent news services.
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