Myanmar junta uses gangs not guns to crush dissent

By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The broom-wielding gangs that broke up fuel price protests in Myanmar were taking direct orders from the ruling junta, which now appears to favour them as a way to crush dissent, rights groups and diplomats said on Thursday.

The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said it had documents proving military and civilian officials had explicit guidelines on how to mobilise and run the Swan-ar Shin heavies used to quash this month's rare outbreak of protests.

In one of the documents, a mid-ranking military officer even talks of the need for proper record-keeping and training courses to ensure "more effective and systematic use" of the Swan-ar Shin, which roughly translates as "Masters of Force".

"They are describing in some detail how they have organised and used these gangs for the purposes of attacking people," AHRC director Basil Fernando said.

The Swan-ar Shin is merely the latest means the junta employs to control the former Burma's 53 million people.

Throughout most of its 45 years of unbroken rule, the military relied first and foremost on the internal spies of Military Intelligence, or MI, a web of informants built up by Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who was purged in 2004.

When MI failed to keep a lid on protests, as happened with a mass uprising of monks, students and civil servants in 1988, the generals sent in the army, which killed as many as 3,000 people in a ruthless crackdown.

The mid-1990s saw the emergence of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a pro-junta social network claiming an official membership of 23 million, to act as the junta's eyes and ears in the provinces.