Plane crash survivors are repeatedly raped,tortured,& allowed to starve to death,by villagers who find downed plane,in Burma/Myanmar
Joe1orbit
Hello,
Here's an interesting news item that caught my eye, despite the fact that it
involves multiple criminals. Over in the Myanmar and Thailand areas of Asia
last month, a plane crashed. It was an accidental crash, and initial reports
stated that all of the passengers and crew on board the plane died in the crash
itself. But a few news reporters decided to dig a little deeper, and they
uncovered a fascinating set of facts.
This plane originated from the capital city of Myanmar. It flew for 350 miles
or so, before crashing in a different "state", still located in Myanmar. The
residents of this state HATE the Myanmar government. When this plane crashed,
villagers ran over to the crash site and apparently realized that this plane
had originated in the capital city, and carried "government" officials.
probably due to the fact that a few of the 39 passengers were military
officials and likely wore UNIFORMS identifying them as such.and thus they felt
it was a "government" plane.
Contrary to initial reports, all of the passengers did NOT perish in the
crash. Some survived. But instead of being RESCUED and given aid, the villagers
proceeded to TORTURE and MURDER the injured plane crash survivors! A stewardess
and a female university student who survived the crash was both RAPED by
FOURTEEN men, literally "raped to death", since they had been badly injured in
the crash itself and needed medical care, not repeated rapes! The stewardess
was repeated raped for FOUR DAYS, before finally dying. Imagine SURVIVING the
terror of a plane crash, celebrating the MIRACULOUS fact that you are alive,
naturally never DREEMING that the local residents would do anything BAD to you,
and THEN to find yourself being repeatedly raped and tortured and finally
murdered!
We get the details below on exactly how this plane crashed, and why it took
authorities many days to find the downed plane. At least 6 people, including an
infant, survived the crash and were actively tortured to death, for days, by
the villagers. There may have been many more survivors, who slowely died as the
villagers ignored their plight,or actively tortured/murdered them.
At least 30 local area village residents are under arrest, and 14 have
already CONFESSED to raping ONE stewardess,who survived the crash, before
killing her. In addition to this one VERY luckless stewardess, male survivors
were tortured before being killed, and the villagers CHOPPED OFF ears and
fingers, in a feeding frenzy to get ahold of the gold earings and rings that
some of the passengers were wearing. An INFANT survivor was deliberately
starved to death by the villagers.
Boy, this is a very nicely VIOLENT image, provided to us by this news
article. Just imagine those wounded crash survivors, THANKING god for the
miracle of surviving a plane crash, only to be set upon by a MOB of enraged
humans, and subjected to torture and rape, before being murdered. I WISH I
could have been a "fly on the wall", and witnessed this entire scene.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of yesterday's Associated Press news wire:
Report: Myanmar villagers torture plane crash victims
September 20, 1998
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Villagers tortured and raped survivors of a plane that
crashed last month in a region of Myanmar where hatred of the military
government runs high, a Thai newspaper said Sunday.
The Bangkok Post reported that Myanmar authorities have arrested 30 villagers,
and at least 14 men have confessed to raping a stewardess.
But a Myanmar government statement received in Bangkok described the Post
article, which did not name sources, as contradictory, confused, and based on
"pure speculation.''
The English-language daily said the aircraft was on a routine flight from
Myanmar's capital, Yangon, to the city of Tachilek, about 350 miles to the
northeast, when it went down Aug. 24. in the mountainous Shan state.
The government reported four days later that all 36 people aboard were killed.
All were Myanmar nationals, and many were military officers and their families.
However, the Post reported that male survivors were tortured, at least one
woman was raped and that villagers chopped off victims' ears and fingers to get
gold jewelry.
Opposition to Myanmar's military government runs deep in Shan State, where
residents say soldiers are guilty of atrocities.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 9/20/98 online edition of The Bangkok
Post newspaper:
Out of the storm - and into death
CULTURAL TURBULENCE: The press recently reported the disappearance of a Burmese
commercial flight. The plane was found days later with no survivors and the
story seemed to end there. However, Sunday Perspective found that the crash was
just the beginning of a story that the Burmese authorities had tried to hide.
ALAN DAWSON
09/20/98
The crash of a Myanmar Airways Fokker-27 plane last month was initially
considered a tragic comedy of errors by an inept Burmese regime. A few
activists disagreed. They wove a story of a high-level conspiracy in Rangoon,
designed to cover up details of a covert flight carrying high-ranking officials
on a secret assignment.
Both of these stories have elements of truth. But the real story of the
domestic flight from Rangoon to Tachilek is more horrific than either of these
contrasting versions. And as one of the witnesses who provided details of the
incident said, "No one could have made this up."
The plane crashed, unseen by anyone, just out of sight of the Tachilek airport.
During several days of massive confusion by Burmese officials, Shan villagers
discovered the crash.
In one of the most atrocious orgies of violence in recent memory, the villagers
killed survivors on the airliner in the most appalling ways. At least one
infant was starved. A flight hostess and a university student, apparently badly
hurt in the crash, were gang-raped to death.
Authorities are still investigating the incident, and Burmese officials have
been even more close-mouthed than usual about it. But a number of other
officials and witnesses from the Golden Triangle crash area have provided
details of the crash and its aftermath.
To a man and woman, knowledgable sources from Burma and Thailand are horrified
about the Fokker crash.
A diplomat who has seen details of the crash described it as "one of the most
gruesome reports I've ever read. How can people do things like that to other
humans?"
There is unlikely to be any international attention or action, however. "The
animosity for the Burmese by the Shan in this case is not something that
outsiders can affect," he said. "It's unfortunate, but it's just an internal
matter that the people are going to have to work out for themselves."
A normal flight: The Rangoon-Tachilek flight took off on schedule on Monday,
August 24. On board were 34 adults and youths, two infants in their mothers'
arms, and a crew of three - two pilots and an air hostess. All were Burmese
citizens.
The Fokker-27 had flown the route hundreds of times. It was a routine flight in
almost all ways. Most Burmese are far too poor to fly, and the passenger list
was typical of most internal flights meant for citizens of Burma.
Aboard the Monday morning flight to the Shan State, for example, were the
police chief and senior administration officers for Tachilek. Exactly why the
two men had been in Rangoon is not known. But their presence was part of the
information used later by government opponents to publicise their story of a
government conspiracy about the flight.
About 20 seats - roughly half the passengers - were Burmese military officers
and their families, including two infants. There are conflicting stories about
how many of these passengers were actually military men. Witness accounts
indicate that about 10 or 12 were soldiers, and the rest were their wives and
children.
At least one of the passengers was a female student from the University of
Rangoon. She was returning to her hometown from the capital. One official
familiar with the case said there were two young women aboard. Several other
young men also were returning home from university registration in Rangoon.
Lost and not missed: There was heavy rain in the area as the Fokker approached
the rudimentary Tachilek airport. Tachilek has a basic terminal and a short,
asphalt runway suitable for the Fokker-27, a twin-engine turboprop airplane
still in service in many places in the world. The airport is visible from high
places in nearby Mae Sai, Thailand's most northern town, such as from the
vantage of the top-floor bar of the Wang Tong Hotel.
Tachilek has only an FM radio to contact and guide aircraft. The airport has no
instruments, no radar. The control tower staff can clear planes for takeoff and
landing pretty much on the basis that there are no animals on the runway to
block them.
Finding the airport and landing is the sole responsibility of the pilot. One of
his landing aids is a long, low hill which rises behind the terminal building.
It parallels the runway and stretches for several kilometres.
As the Fokker approached Tachilek, pilot and ground talked. There was a huge
rainstorm under way. Black clouds came down almost to ground level, and
visibility was much less than 1,000 feet - and even less than that from the
windscreen of a speeding plane. From Thailand, no one could see the airport
that Monday morning, let alone the incoming Fokker, trying to land its 39
souls. From the airport, one could see flooding on the runway from the huge
cloudburst.
Knowledgable officials said the ground controller at Tachilek made the decision
to wave off the flight from Rangoon. He ordered the pilot to abort his
approach, peel off to the west, and go to Heho, the nearest town with an
airstrip, and out of the path of the thunderstorm.
The Fokker pilot, according to reliable officials, acknowledged the plan to
forget about landing at Tachilek.
This was the exact point where everything went wrong for the ground controller,
the plane and passengers - and the Rangoon government.
The passengers were apparently informed they wouldn't be landing at Tachilek as
planned. One can imagine they responding with the groans of the delayed
traveller, while probably relieved they would soon be out of the storm that was
tossing their airplane around.
The air controller at Tachilek figured that the Fokker had turned for Heho as
agreed, and returned to his routine work.
But Heho officials have no direct contact with Tachilek. On that Monday
morning, they had no inkling that a passenger plane had been ordered to head
their way for an emergency landing and wait out the Tachilek storm. For hours -
for an entire day according to several officials involved in the later search -
no one even realised that the Fokker and its passengers were missing.
In Tachilek, everyone figured the plane had gone on to Heho as agreed. In Heho,
nobody knew it was due. In Rangoon, airline officials figured - if they thought
at all - that the flight was proceeding as planned.
A sudden silence: But the flight lasted only seconds after the pilot
acknowledged instructions to break off his landing approach to Tachilek.
In the absence of direct evidence, it seems the pilot of the Fokker misread his
instruments, misjudged his position - or got bad information from the
instruments he had. He aborted the final approach to Tachilek airport and
turned right to begin a new heading to Heho.
But he was far too low to clear the ridge of the hills that paralleled the
Tachilek airport. From the position of the Fokker wreckage, it appears he was
climbing, as expected, but the tail of the plane hit the hill and the Fokker
plunged into the forest. Reliable witnesses who visited the crash scene said
the plane's landing gear was still down, and one of the engines appeared
scorched, raising speculation that it had suffered a lightning strike.
The plane bounced, skidded, partly broke apart and came to a halt in sudden
silence.
There was no fire, no smoke. The forest swallowed the airplane, and it could
not easily be seen from the air or the ground (although a careful search with
field glasses can spot the crash from Mae Sai). It was not visible from Burma,
where it was actually located, or from Laos. only kilometres away. The site of
the crash was visible from three countries but no one could actually see the
plane.
Inside the largely intact fuselage of the Fokker and strewn nearby on the
forest floor, many of the 39 people were dead from the high-speed impact. But
there were survivors. The pretty Myanmar Airways air hostess, strapped tightly
into her seat, had lived, for example. It is not known whether any of the
survivors could get out of the plane, away from the crash, or tried.
Clueless in Rangoon: By Tuesday, Rangoon knew for certain it had a missing
plane. Aviation officials had no real clue where it could be. They called
counterparts in Thailand and in Laos to inform them, and to ask for help in a
wide, general search for the Fokker.
It would take three days for Burmese searchers to find the wreckage, although
ironically it was less than a 45-minute walk through the bush from the Tachilek
airport. It would take another 48 hours for authorities to secure the site and
protect it. By then, it was far too late for the survivors of the the doomed
airliner.
In the meantime, searches were under way in Thailand, in Laos and up and down
the frontiers inside Burma. Rangoon authorities appear honestly to have not had
a clue where the plane had gone, or where to start to look.
Conspiracy theories to the contrary, standing procedure has Chiang Mai as an
alternate airport to Tachilek in case of aviation trouble. Officials were
correct to alert their Thai counterparts to the possibility the pilot of the
Fokker might have flown into Thailand in an attempt to reach Chiang Mai.
In the meantime, unfortunately, the wrecked airliner was found by a group of
Shan villagers.
Conspiracy of silence: Exactly when the plane was found by local villagers is
unclear. It also is unknown - and may never be revealed by the secretive
Burmese police - which village they came from. The closest hamlet to the crash
is Mae Yahn, a five-minute walk from the crash scene, but it is unknown if this
village was home to any of the culprits who took over the airliner.
Most evidence indicate they found the wreckage within an hour of the crash. In
any case, it is certain they were on the scene by Tuesday, the morning after.
It is equally sure that at least five adults were still alive. We know this now
from the state of decomposition from all the bodies on the airliner. It is
possible - extremely unlikely, however - that the villagers found all the
passengers alive but unable to move.
But it is medically certain that the air hostess, the university student, three
other passengers and at least one infant were alive after the villagers
arrived. Probably they were moaning or calling for help. One baby was
whimpering or crying - forensic investigators are certain of this.
Over the next 48 hours, the Shan men engaged in an orgy - there is no other
applicable word - of violence that few civilised people could imagine. The
worst fate was reserved for the female crew member.
As often happens in a high speed crash, the clothes of the air hostess were
ripped off. She was injured too badly to get out of the plane. The Shan men
began raping her. Burmese officers investigating the crash have refused to
release details, but at least 14 men have been questioned, and reportedly have
confessed to raping the woman.
Eventually she died. Or perhaps the men finally finished, and left her to die.
Some of the men have bad memories, but others say they took turns with the
woman for four days before she finally died.
"I have heard of things in war, but never anything like this savagery," said
one horrified witness. Forensic examination of the body of the dead woman
confirmed multiple rapes. A university student apparently suffered the same
fate, but medical reports are still unavailable from a secretive Burmese
bureaucracy.
The Burmese male survivors on the plane were tortured. The villagers chopped
off ears and fingers to get gold jewellery. The hated men of the Burmese army
were kicked and punched, living and dead alike. They died quickly, if they
survived the crash at all.
Luggage and cargo was looted, of course. "That goes without saying," noted a
witness. But a report that several million kyat in payrolls and business cash
was being transported aboard the plane could not be confirmed. In any case, no
money was found in the wreckage or on any of the bodies.
All guns aboard the plane had disappeared. The exact number of weapons is not
known but probably would not exceed two dozen rifles and handguns.
By the time real rescuers arrived to chase away the village jackals, most of
the bodies were in a state of advanced decomposition. The villagers made no
attempt to shelter any of the bodies as they went about their grisly killing.
Burmese authorities are reportedly determined to get every last villager who
had a hand in the violence and looting at the crash site.
But they may have a difficult time dealing with the real conspiracy that took
place at Tachilek - the conspiracy of silence and hatred against the Burmese
and the army.
While political opposition groups blame the Burmese army and government for
covering up the Fokker crash, the real cover-up is even more sinister and
bothersome. The fate of the innocent air hostess on the plane is a signal of
the fate that many of Burma's minorities have in mind. And the investigation is
unlikely to make the Burmese authorities feel sympathetic towards the tribal
people, either.
As of last week, the Burmese had 30 Shan villagers under arrest as they
continued trying to unravel the series of events and pinpoint those responsible
for the orgy of violence at the crash site of the Fokker.
Burma's government will undoubtedly get to the bottom of the case and punish
the guilty. However, it is unlikely to succeed in cooling the extremely tense
relations between the Shan and the Rangoon governors.