Burma soldier kills two senior officers in Irrawaddy

KNG Saturday, 07 June 2008

A Burmese soldier went berserk and shot dead two of his senior officers and injured one yesterday at about 9 p.m. local time. The soldier was posted in the Irrawaddy River dam project in Northern Burma, local sources said.

The two Corporals, who were shot, died at the army post in the hydropower project site in the Irrawaddy confluence called Myitsone, 17 miles north of Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State. The sergeant has been hospitalized in Myitkyina Township General Hospital, residents of Tang Hpre village in Myitsone told KNG today.

The killer soldier escaped from the army post after the shooting. The reason for the shooting is unknown yet, the villagers of Tang Hpre said.

Several villagers of Tang Hpre including village administrators have been summoned by the military authorities of Myitkyina Township to search for the soldier, according to sources in Myitkyina.

Eyewitnesses told the KNG, that military operation in the area as of last night centres around capturing the killer soldier. Burmese soldiers are checking all cars from Myitsone by setting up several military checkpoints on the 17 mile-long, Myitkyina-Myitsone motor route.

Villagers in Myitsone said, the Burmese Army post has about eight soldiers who are on security duty on a four month rotational system in the dam inspection site for the Burma-Asia World Co., Ltd. for over a month now.

However, soldiers from the army post have been forcibly collecting thousands of Kyat from gold miners, ferry owners and timber businessmen at the Irrawaddy ferry station in Tang Hpre, a local businessman told KNG today.

Meanwhile, inspection of the Myitsone dam project has been temporarily suspended with the monsoon setting in but the inspection will be stepped up with more labourers than earlier with the arrival of winter, sources close to Asia World Co., Ltd. said.

Chinese inspectors have been in Myitsone hydropower project site since 2006 under a joint agreement between the Burmese ruling junta's Ministry of Electric Power (1) and China's China Power Investment Corporation (CPI).

The Myitsone hydropower project is the biggest of a total of seven hydropower projects in Mali and N'mai Rivers in Kachin State and will generate 3,600 MW of electricity. However villages around the project site and Kachins have strongly opposed the project.

Source