Brian McCartan
A consensus is gathering that Myanmar’s State Peace and Development Council’s (SPDC) official version of events of its violent crackdown on street demonstrations in late September, continued detention without trial of protesters and ongoing harassment and arrests of activists doesn’t square with the actual facts. The ruling junta said that 10 protesters were killed when its troops opened fire and that of the 2,927 people it detained, all but 80 have since been released. Two human-rights reports released in the past week, one by US-based rights group Human Rights Watch, the other by the United Nations Human Rights Council, highlight the ruling junta’s excessive use of force and contradict the junta’s official figures.
The SPDC in its characteristic fashion has downplayed the incidents, while trying to present a benevolent image by releasing prisoners it held in makeshift detention centers. It has also aimed to deflect criticism by assigning a liaison officer to meet with pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while at the same time proceeding with its “Seven Step Road Map” to democracy which excludes her political party from any participation in the process.
The Human Rights Watch report, entitled “Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma”, was based on the testimony of over 100 witnesses to recent events inside the country, to which the junta has sharply restricted foreign journalists’ access. The UN report was the product of a November 11 to 15 fact-finding trip to the country by its special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Both reports found the regime’s official figure of 10 killed to be much too low. Human Rights Watch estimates at least 20 civilians were killed as a result of the military’s violent suppression of the protests; Pinheiro says at least 31 were killed. And both monitoring organizations indicated that the actual toll is probably still much higher.
The UN report also claims that at least 4,000 people have been arrested, of which 1,000 are still being held in detention, while Human Rights Watch says that hundreds of protestors remain unaccounted for. Such estimates are echoed by other groups, including the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based monitoring group composed of former Myanmar political prisoners.
The group has been able to document the location of 250 of those prisoners, but the whereabouts of at least 300 others remains unknown. They join the 1,200 political prisoners which were already languishing in Myanmar’s overcrowded prisons and labor camps. Many more activists have been arrested since the demonstrations were violently put down in late September, with security personnel continuing to sweep the country in pursuit of those involved in the countrywide protests.
The SPDC, meanwhile, has downplayed the scale and severity of its crackdown and continues to justify its violent actions as a proportionate and necessary response to uphold national security. In response to the UN report, Wunna Maung Lwin, the SPDC’s ambassador to Geneva, said, “Exercising its sovereign right to handle a violent situation should not be construed as a human rights violation.” According to the Myanmar ambassador, “Almost all those in detention in connection with the September events have been released.”
The December 4 edition of the state mouthpiece The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, meanwhile, stated that 8,585 prisoners had been granted amnesty between November 16 and December 3 “to mark the successful holding of the National Convention in September 2007, the commencement of the functions of the Commission for Drafting the State Constitution, the third stage of the seven-step Road Map, forging the national solidarity in the country and cooperation with international communities including the UN”.
This figure, too, is highly debatable. While the number of released may include some of those detained in the wake of the September crackdown, most of those freed were petty criminals with no connections to politics - including 33 Thai nationals. According to the Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, not one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Student Group that initially organized the protests has been released, nor have any of the leading monks involved.
According to Bo Gyi, the AAPP’s chairman, “Only seven of the released prisoners were political, but they were arrested in 2000 and 2001.” The tactic of releasing prisoners and tying the event to political statements has frequently been used in the past by the regime as a way of trying to appease the international community and deflect criticism. Bo Gyi said, “It is a tactic. When there is international pressure they show the world that they can release large numbers of prisoners.”
Well-worn tactic
The SPDC has repeatedly been commended by the international community for its past release of political prisoners. Prior political prisoner releases have often acted to ease international pressure, under the misguided impression that the junta is loosening its restrictions on the opposition. The releases, often of low-ranking opposition figures, have to date never led towards genuine dialogue or a move towards national reconciliation.
Rights groups note that the release of non-political prisoners is a well-worn government tactic. In 1993-94, for instance, the military regime rounded up hundreds of people at a time, who were then released a few days later. Even pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi commented at the time that if the regime wished to arrest five of her National League for Democracy (NLD) members, they would arrest 105 people including the NLD members, then release the other 100 for which the international community congratulated it.
The releases now have the added benefit of focusing attention on the old capital Yangon and away from other peripheral abuses, such as the junta’s continued use of forced labor, growing internal displacement, food scarcity and human rights violations associated with the military’s ongoing counterinsurgency campaign along its borders. Recent reports from Karen State indicate that the army is flooding the area with military units as part of yet another dry season military offensive against ethnic insurgents. Meanwhile, liaison officer ex-Brigadier General Aung Kyi’s three meetings with NLD leader Suu Kyi have so far come to nothing. The only way real political dialogue can be achieved is through meeting with the SPDC’s senior leadership, especially with the junta’s chairman Senior General Than Shwe - which the appointment of such a low-ranking liaison officer was apparently designed to avoid. Aung Kyi’s appointment does, however, allow the junta the benefit of telling the international community that at least some discussion with the opposition is underway.
The duplicity of this was shown in the Myanmar National Day speeches of Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan and Aung Kyi. While Aung Kyi claimed to have made progress in his discussions with Suu Kyi, Kyaw Hsan’s speech made it clear that opposition groups would not be included in the constitution drafting process. This presumably includes Suu Kyi and her NLD.
Than Shwe in his National Day Speech reaffirmed support for the Seven Step Road Map and on December 3 the Constitution Drafting Commission began work on writing a new constitution, the third designation step in the process. Although details are unclear, what is certain is that any constitution that results will include provisions for a strong role for the military in any future “democratic” Myanmar.
The international community, at long last, appears to be waking to the junta’s tactics. In a December 10 statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a visit to Thailand, he said that “patience is running out” with Myanmar. Whether that means the UN might consider imposing its own set of economic or financial sanctions against the regime, as the US and European Union have imposed, seems doubtful so long as China and Russia use their veto powers to protect the junta from UN Security Council censure, as they did earlier this year.
In the past when the international community’s patience has run dry, the UN and others have often turned a blind eye and moved on to making pronouncements about the next global hot spot. And the junta has proven in the past it has the patience to wait out international condemnation until international attention shifts elsewhere. Once the spotlight is off, the regime can revert back to form and continue the repression that has been a part of life in Myanmar since the military first seized power in 1962.
Brian McCartan is a Thailand-based freelance journalist.
