Mike Hedge, Senior Writer
Two Burmese men living in Australia have joined their former commander in admitting to crimes against humanity as members of a military intelligence group in Burma.
One of them, an Australian citizen, says he held a rank equivalent to sergeant in the Burmese army team led by confessed mass murderer Htoo Htoo Han, who now lives in Brisbane.
He was joined this week in his admissions by a third man, who is in Australia on a refugee visa, also claiming to be a member of the group. Both men live in Victoria.
Han last month admitted to personally assassinating at least 24 anti-government dissidents and being indirectly involved in as many as 150 other murders during widespread anti-government protests in Burma in the late 1980s.
The two men say they acted under instructions from Han and other officers to torture and eliminate targets and to dispose of the bodies of dozens of murdered protesters.
The elder of the two men, who is 57, provided evidence of his identity, but spoke only on the condition that he be identified by the name Maung.
The other gave his name as Soe Aung and said he was a teenager when he committed his crimes at the time of the 1988 unrest.
Maung said undercover officers, including Han, would infiltrate student ranks and relay information about targets.
“First we line up trucks, about 100, and when the people (protesters) come we lift the cover and shoot,” he said.
“After that we shoot into the houses. It is martial law. If the people show their face they are shot.
“We are guilty, but the command come from Htoo Htoo Han and up above.”
As the military regained control in Rangoon, the role of Han’s group, he said, was to torture suspects and dispose of bodies.
Both men, who said they received training from the Israeli secret service, described a popular form of torture in which a wooden pole was repeatedly rolled along a victims shins.
“The pain is very bad, they can’t stand it,” Maung said.
“Also we make them stand on small stones, and give beatings.
“Sometimes we come back in the morning and they are dead.”
Maung said many bodies were incinerated in a boiler house at a major Rangoon cemetery.
“We just throw them in, nobody knows who are they.”
Like Han, who is expecting to be interviewed by Australian Federal Police this week, his two “comrades” say they are admitting their crimes because they are deeply troubled by their guilt.
“We are Buddhist and we don’t want to do these things,” Maung said.
“But if you don’t do it you are shot.”
He says he escaped to Thailand in 1990 and stayed in a refugee camp before being sponsored to come to Australia as a refugee in 1992.
“Now I want to do something for Australia, pay back, they give us all the rights and support,” he said.
Soe Aung said he spent 10 years in refugee settlements in Thailand before arriving in Australia six years ago.
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