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SPDC False Accusations Regarding Shelling of Myawaddy Town

1. The SPDC military regime controlled newspapers reported that Myawaddy town, in Karen State on the Thai-Burma border, was shelled by Karen rebels on February 14, 2009. We, the Karen National Union (KNU), would like to say categorically that the shelling of Myawaddy had nothing to do with the KNU nor its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).

2. We have no doubt that it was a machination by the SPDC to tarnish the image of the KNU and the revolutionary resistance of the Karen people. The KNU has a policy of not targeting civilians. This is in stark contrast to the SPDC Army, which deliberately targets civilians in Karen State. The SPDC continues to spread lies and false propaganda against the Karen National Union because we are a democratic organization, committed to human rights and democracy, and we have the support of the Karen people. Our KNLA defends the Karen people against attacks by the SPDC Army.

3. We have reason to believe that the shelling of the town was done by the SPDC, in order to cover up the widespread and gross human rights violations committed by its troops in Karen State and elsewhere, by diverting the focus of the UN Special Rapporteur Thomas Quintana, who is touring the Karen and Mon States at present.

4. We would like to invite the Special Rapporteur to meet with the KNU, Karen civil society organizations, our people in the refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, and to meet with internally displaced people who have been forced from their homes as a result of attacks by the SPDC Army and their allies.

5. The shelling of a civilian target, such as Myawaddy town, is an evil design that reminds us of a similar incident at the beginning of the Karen people’s resistance. In 1949, not long after the start of Karen resistance, Gen. Ne Win’s puppet army troops, clad in uniforms of Karen troops, wiped out a Burman village by military attack and killed all the villagers. The government in power accused the Karen of committing the atrocities and took the international diplomatic community to the scene of the carnage.

6. In this way, the international diplomatic community was deceived into believing the Karen rebels to be the perpetrators of the atrocities. Not long after the criminal plot, the Burmese government received a huge supply of new weapons and ammunition for Ne Win’s Army.

7. The KNLA troops regularly receive political training and they have been ordered never to attack civilian targets and always to take great measures in their military activities not to cause civilian casualties. In conclusion, we would like to say that it is the SPDC troops which regularly lob shells into Karen villages, to terrorize, maim and kill the civilians in Karen State.

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