Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07RANGOON198
2007-02-26 10:57:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Rangoon
Cable title:  

LIFE IN SHAN STATE'S FORMER PRINCIPALITY OF HSIPAW

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PREL BM 
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FM AMEMBASSY RANGOON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5764
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 0184
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 4473
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RUEHCI/AMCONSUL CALCUTTA 1053
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 1052
RUDKIA/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0866
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 3058
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0709
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000198 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS; PACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL BM
SUBJECT: LIFE IN SHAN STATE'S FORMER PRINCIPALITY OF HSIPAW


RANGOON 00000198 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Poloff Dean Tidwell for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000198

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/MLS; PACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL BM
SUBJECT: LIFE IN SHAN STATE'S FORMER PRINCIPALITY OF HSIPAW


RANGOON 00000198 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Poloff Dean Tidwell for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: A recent visit to Hsipaw revealed that
recent Chinese migrants have changed the demographics and the
economy of this former Shan principality. Family members of
two Hsipaw political prisoners described their sentences and
prison life. The regime maintains a watchful eye on
potential dissent while this historic backwater slowly
becomes a tourist mecca. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Poloff recently visited Hsipaw, home to a Shan prince
whom the Ne Win regime detained and murdered in 1962. Inge
Sargeant recounted his story in "Twilight Over Burma: My Life
as a Shan Princess." Today, Hsipaw's approximately 10,000
residents live in a district with a population of 80,000.
The town is a thriving agriculture center and a major stop
for trucks transporting goods from Muse on the China border
to Mandalay.

CHINESE MIGRANTS BRING CHANGE


3. (C) The demographics of this once predominantly Shan town
have changed dramatically in recent years due to a large
inward migration of Chinese. According to a Hsipaw-born
ethnic Burman tour guide, only about five percent of the
population was Chinese in the early 1960s. He estimated that
30 percent of the town's population is now Chinese. Most
have migrated in the past decade and obtained National
Registration Cards by bribing Burmese officials approximately
$100 per card. The Chinese dominate trade and, most locals
admit, have helped improve the local economy. The Chinese
taught Shan farmers modern methods to grow watermelons, which
the Chinese buy and ship back to China together with fruit
and vegetable crops. Hsipaw farmers also ship rice to China,
after paying bribes to local authorities to export it outside
of Burma.


4. (C) Several Chinese schools have opened in Hsipaw and are
popular with the town's youth and children from outlying
villages. Some of these children are ethnic Chinese, but
others are Shan whose parents want their children to study
Chinese to open up more economic opportunities for them in

the future.

RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY


5. (C) A local Muslim merchant said over 200 Muslim families
live in Hsipaw town with local roots going back to the 1880s.
The more than 2,000 Muslims (20 percent of the town's
population) worship in a large, new, attractive mosque, and
according to the merchant, face no overt religious
discrimination from the authorities. There are six different
Christian denominations represented in Hsipaw, as well as a
Hindu temple, a Sikh temple, and many Shan and Chinese
Buddhist monasteries. According to several sources, Hsipaw's
diverse religious and ethnic communities live together in
harmony.

TOURISM GROWING


6. (C) Hsipaw has recently become a popular tourist
destination, especially with European and Asian tourists.
Mr. Charles' Guesthouse is the largest and best run tourist
accommodation in town and offers maps and daily tours to
local villages and scenic spots. It also has the only fax
machine in town, so the staff are frequently asked to deliver
fax messages to the police and other government offices.
This helps provide locals with news they might not otherwise
hear. For example, when the regime recently carried out a
prisoner release on Independence Day (January 4),Mr. Charles
was the first in Hsipaw to learn (via fax) that 15 prisoners
at Lashio prison were released.

PRISONS BULGING


RANGOON 00000198 002.2 OF 003



7. (C) Ethnic Burman residents of the town are primarily
government officials or military. Last year authorities
reopened the old prison in Hsipaw to relieve the crowded
regime prison in Lashio, about an hour to the northwest.
Locals estimate the prison population in Hsipaw "in the
hundreds." Poloff observed more than 20 prisoners working on
the riverbank sifting sand for sale to construction
companies. Local residents said the prisoners receive 60-80
cents (800 - 1000 kyat) per day for their labor. Only those
about to complete their prison sentences are allowed to work
outside. Nevertheless, residents said two prisoners recently
escaped from their riverside work site.

HSIPAW'S POLITICAL PRISONERS


8. (C) Poloff spoke to the partners of two political
prisoners from Hsipaw who are now serving sentences in
Mandalay Prison. Maureen Mahoney, an Australian national,
(PROTECT) runs a riverside coffee shop named Black House
Cafe. Authorities ordered her Shan partner, Sai Ba, to be a
witness at the trial of a robbery suspect, but assured him
that he would be allowed to return to Hsipaw after the trial.
After the trial, authorities sentenced Sai Ba in January
2006 to three years in Mandalay prison. Mahoney thought the
authorities imprisoned her partner because of his past
political party affiliations.


9. (C) Poloff also visited Sao Sarm Hpong (Fern),who lives
at the palace of the former Prince of Hsipaw. She was afraid
to allow poloff inside the compound, but spoke to him at a
side gate of the estate for 15 minutes. She said police
arrested her husband, Sao Oo Kya, nephew of the last Hsipaw
prince, in mid-2005. The police searched their home for
foreign currency that he allegedly accepted from tourists for
tours of the old palace. The police could not find any
foreign currency, so they charged Sao Oo Kya for acting as a
guide without an official guide license and for telling
tourists information that defamed the state. The authorities
sentenced Sao Oo Kya to 13 years imprisonment in Mandalay.
Fern said the real reason the regime imprisoned him was
because he was invited to attend the Shan State Council
meeting at Taunggyi in February 2005, after which the regime
arrested and imprisoned General Hso Ten and other key Shan
leaders. Although Sao Oo Kya declined to attend the event,
she said the authorities still considered him a dangerous
Shan nationalist.

LIFE IN MANDALAY PRISON


10. (C) Authorities allow the children of the two political
prisoners to visit them biweekly. Fern claimed that it costs
her son about $80 (100,000 kyat) each time he travels from
Lashio to Mandalay to visit his father. She said the ICRC
formerly paid the full cost of the trips, but recently had
reduced assistance to only $8 (10,000 kyat),citing budget
constraints. The prisoners' families usually take dried meat
and other food provisions that do not require refrigeration
plus medicines. They are not allowed to give the prisoners
money, but they leave money with the wardens to pass on to
their relatives. Fern and Maureen both said that their
partners have confirmed they received the money. Maureen
said her partner used the money to bribe the warden to move
him to a smaller, less crowded cell, vice a large room with
200 other prisoners. She claimed the warden also allowed him
occasional buckets of hot water for bathing. To fight
boredom, Sai Ba has started Shan literacy classes for other
Shan prisoners in Mandalay.


11. (C) COMMENT: Hsipaw remains an historic, idyllic
backwater in northern Shan State with a religiously and
ethnically diverse population. Its residents benefit from
its proximity to China and fertile land, as food flows north
and Chinese migrants flow south into Burma. Hsipaw's past is
also a source of behind-the-scenes repression. The regime
mistrusts the Shan people, so moves quickly to squash any

RANGOON 00000198 003.2 OF 003


hint of resurgent nationalism or expression of Shan culture
in the home of its traditional monarchs. At the same time,
they profit from the influx of Chinese. END COMMENT.
VILLAROSA