The escort car of the Burmese military junta's Northern regional commander Maj-Gen Soe Win hit a passenger car and injured three on the way to Laiza, the headquarters of Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) on the Sino-Burma border in Kachin State, northern Burma, early this morning, said eyewitnesses.
Eyewitnesses said, the accident occurred at the bend of Awng Ja Kadawng (or Awng Ja slope) in Nam San Yang village near Laiza. The escort car a black Toyota 4-Wheel driver, with the military license No. 1 Kha - 3085 hit the Toyota Hilux passenger car at about 6:30 a.m. local time.
The passenger car somersaulted twice and stopped after being hit by the commander’s escort car. Of the three injured passengers one had a broken clavicle bone, said residents of Nam San Yang.
The commander Soe Win or the local military authorities did not rescue the victims in the passenger car, added a resident of Nam San Yang.
The commander Maj-Gen Soe Win arrived in the KIO's Laiza headquarters for a meeting with KIO senior members regarding the KIO's demand for power sharing in a new Kachin State government after next year’s elections and the transformation of the KIA, the armed-wing of KIO to a Kachin Regional Guard Force (KRGF) instead of the junta-proposed Border Guard Force (BGF), said Laiza sources.
In a similar incident, on July 24 at between 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. local time, Maj-Gen Soe Win's escort car, the black Toyota Landcruiser hit four Kachin women staying near the road in Section (1) of Mai Na village (Mung Na in Kachin), near Balaminhtin Irrawaddy River bridge in Waingmaw township. The commander was visiting the army's Infantry Battalion No. 58 based in Waingmaw town, said villagers of Mai Na.
In the accident, a 45 year-old local Kachin woman Jauhpa Dai Nyoi died instantly and three women were seriously injured. They were hospitalized in the public general hospital in Myitkyina, said relatives of the victims.
Jauhpa Dai Nyoi was buried in Jaw Bum Kachin Christian Cemetery in Nawng Nang village, ten miles north of Myitkyina the next day on July 25. The cost of the funeral service was borne by the commander Soe Win, said local Baptist Church's sources.
According to relatives of Jauhpa Dai Nyoi, no legal suit was filed following the death of Jauhpa Dai Nyoi by the commander's escort car but the commander secretly opened a bank account and put 1 million Kyat (est. US$909) in the name of the dead woman’s daughter--- 10-year-old Ma Tsai Naw as school fees. The deposit was made in the junta's Myanmar Economic Bank in Myitkyina.
Sources close to Commander Soe Win said the escort Toyota Landcruiser car was being driven by an officer close to him in the Northern Command headquarters in Myitkyina on that day.
