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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 24KB | 453 lines

<text> <title> Burma (Myanmar) </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Asia Watch: Burma (Myanmar) </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments Refusing to respect the results of the 1990 general elections, Burma's military leaders intensified their crackdown on political dissent throughout the country in 1991. Repression was worse than any other time in recent years, marked by a complete lack of basic freedoms and the continuing imprisonment of thousands of suspected opponents of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). By the middle of the year, the crackdown extended beyond members of the main opposition parties to include a massive purge of those employed in the civil service, schools and universities. In late 1990 and early 1991, SLORC also heightened its offensive against ethnic minority insurgent groups, resulting in widespread civilian casualties and the displacement of tens of thousands of people along Burma's borders. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi helped to focus attention on SLORC's disastrous human rights record. The crackdown on members and supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was especially severe. The NLD had won an overwhelming victory in the May 1990 elections, capturing over eighty percent of the popular vote. Rather than transfer power to an NLD-dominated People's Assembly (Pyithu Hluttaw), SLORC instead mounted a campaign aimed at destroying the NLD and, later, all potential sources of political opposition to the regime. Hundreds of NLD officials, including over fifty of the newly elected People's Assembly representatives, were arrested in a sweep that began in July 1991. Earlier in the year, arrested NLD People's Assembly representatives were sentenced to between ten and twenty-five years in prison by military tribunals. Severe mistreatment is believed to have led to the death in detention of at least three senior NLD officials. Tin Maung Win, an NLD People's Assembly representative, died in early January in Insein Prison, only a few weeks after his arrest. Maung Thawka, a prominent writer and senior NLD official, died of a heart attack in June at the Rangoon General Hospital, three days after having been moved from Insein Jail, where he was believed to have been badly tortured. Maung Ko, a leading NLD labor organizer, died in Insein Jail after being tortured in November 1990. NLD President Tin U and other senior officials originally sentenced in 1989 and 1990 had their sentences extended in 1991. For example, Tin U's sentence was extended from three to seventeen years. At the beginning of 1991, five of the NLD's original Central Executive Committee members were in prison, and party leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest. NLD offices were closed in many towns, party activities were banned, publications were stopped, and the party was prohibited from making public statements. Anyone involved with the NLD became suspect in the eyes of the military authorities and subject to harassment and the threat of arrest. By mid-1991, the NLD had largely collapsed as a working political organization. The SLORC also began in 1991 to target smaller political parties and political figures generally considered more "moderate" in their opposition to the regime than the NLD leadership. In January, Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, leader of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), was arrested on charges of being in contact with insurgent and "underground" groups. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison, and the AFPFL was deregistered. By May, a total of nine political parties had been deregistered. These included the League for Democracy and Peace, founded by former Prime Minister U Nu, who is under house arrest; and the National Democratic Party, founded by Sein Win, head of the government-in-exile on the Thai border. In July, several senior members of the United Nationalities Development Party (UNDP) were arrested on a series of charges including contact with the insurgent Karen National Union. Although UNDP leader Aung Gyi, a former army vice chief of staff, was not arrested, he was implicated in the charges and criticized in the official press. Throughout 1991, SLORC carried out a huge purge of the civil service, schools and universities. By October, as many as fifteen thousand civil servants were reported to have been fired on suspicion of being opposed to the regime. Beginning in January, civil servants were required to answer a series of questions about their role in the 1988 uprising and their views of the military, political parties and SLORC policy. On October 4, Khin Nyunt, SLORC first secretary, warned public servants that a series of directives had already been issued prohibiting them from political activities. Public servants were also obliged to see that their families refrain from anti-government activities. Similarly, hundred of teachers and university lecturers are reported to have been fired. Although schools and universities were gradually reopened during 1991 after nearly three years of closure, all educational institutions remain under strict military supervision, and the activities of students are closely monitored. On December 10 and 11, heavily armed soldiers and police crushed demonstrations at Rangoon University coinciding with the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, putting an end to the largest protests to take place in Burma since the September 1988 uprising. There were unconfirmed reports of hundreds of arrests. Burma's universities were shut down and thousands of troops were deployed throughout Rangoon. There were also protests and arrests in Mandalay, and the state-run radio blamed "unscrupulous subversive elements" for a bombing at a railway station on December 11. (Kevin Cooney, Reuters, December 12, 1991.) Martial law remained strictly enforced, as local military tribunals and township-level Law and Order Restoration Councils worked to ensure an end to independent political activity. In May, General Khin Nyunt, head of SLORC's Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI) and a SLORC member, quoted the Duke of Wellington on the nature of Burma's martial law: "Martial law is neither more nor less than the will of the General who commands the army. In fact, Martial Law means no law at all." In a similar vein, the SLORC chairman, General Saw Maung, said in May: "Martial law means the will of the ruler. He can do anything he wishes to do." Such statements reveal that Burma's military authorities feel unconstrained in crushing political dissent. A large military presence is clearly visible in Rangoon and most other towns. Troops and armored personnel carriers patrol major streets and are deployed outside all public buildings. Gatherings of more than four people are banned, movement out of one's township must be reported to local military authorities, and all media remain under tight state control. Burma's jails remain inaccessible not only to international human rights and humanitarian organizations, U.N. agencies and foreign diplomatic personnel, but also, in many cases, to families of detainees. Torture and other forms of severe mistreatment continue to be a routine part of interrogation, both in the main jails such as Insein Jail in Rangoon and Tharrawaddy Jail in Pegu Division, and at Yay Kyi Aing, the DDSI headquarters, where political prisoners may be detained indefinitely without charge. Political prisoners are reportedly used for forced labor. In early 1991, three hundred political prisoners who had been forced to work at a mining camp in northern Shan State, a few miles from Lashio, were reported to have died from mistreatment or malnutrition. Asia Watch could not independently confirm the report. SLORC also continued its policy of forced relocation. S