FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 11, 2006
AS-165-2006
A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
BURMA: Bloody killings expose myth of “state stability”
In recent weeks and months there have been a growing number of reports of bloody killings of ordinary people by police and other state officers in the cities and towns of Burma. These brutal attacks expose the myth of “state stability” that the military government there uses to justify its prolonged existence.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on July 7 issued an appeal on the alleged assault and subsequent death in police custody of Maung Ne Zaw, whose mother has now fled to Thailand. Her son, she complained to the regional army commander, was stopped, illegally detained and beaten on the side of the road in Kachin State by Special Anti-drug Squad police on March 14. He died in detention on May 2, she says, after failing to obtain proper medical treatment. Even a post mortem examination was not possible. When she asked a doctor about cause of death he gave a range of implausible answers, from cerebral malaria to HIV, either out of fear or due to some tacit agreement with the police.
News of Maung Ne Zaw’s death followed reliable reports that police in Yetashe Township in Pegu Division also murdered a young mother in their custody on June 19. Ma Nyo Kyi a 23-year-old who was living in Shwemyaing ward in Myohla town was reportedly arrested earlier by Police Deputy Superintendent Zaw Lwin and another officer while on her way home from a shopping trip. Her eight-month-old baby was taken into custody with her for a night, but sent back to the family in the morning. When the family brought the baby for feeding the police on duty said that Nyo Kyi had been sent to hospital after being found hanging in her cell. However, doctors who declared her dead reportedly found severe injuries on her head and back. According to local sources, the same township police also tortured a young man to death at the end of 2005 but had warned the family against taking any action.
Soldiers taking responsibility for railway line security in the same township also allegedly beat a young man to death, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) shortwave radio reported at the start of June. According to the news broadcast, 23-year-old Maung Soe Lin Aung was the second person to be assaulted by the soldiers in recent weeks. In May, another young man was hospitalised after encountering the drunken troops on the wrong side of the tracks.
Similarly, a 24-year-old woman reportedly suffered what the Oslo-based DVB referred to as “life-threatening injuries” after being assaulted by a police chief in Kyimyintaing Township, Rangoon on June 8. Ma Khin Mar Lwin, a washerwoman living in Ohbo ward, was arrested after a housewife alleged that she stole some belongings, DVB reported on June 13. Having arrested her, Police Station Officer Ne Myo is alleged to have beaten Khin Mar Lwin so severely that her eardrums broke and her body was covered with bruises. She was also allegedly sexually abused by a family member of the accusing person. Upon her release, Khin Mar Lwin was purportedly offered money by the family member and local officials in order to stay silent about her ordeal. However, she is said to have refused the money and insisted that she will complain to higher authorities; to what end, it remains to be seen.
Elsewhere in Rangoon Division a man who was taken into police custody is now feared dead. According to DVB, U Maung Maung, a 40-year-old from Dawpon Township, was taken for questioning on June 27 after his father died in an apparent accident at home. But when family members went to see him at the police station, they were reportedly told that Maung Maung had been taken to hospital, and then on July 3 that he had escaped from the hospital. The next day, Maung Maung’s son was summoned and threatened not to talk about his father’s disappearance or risk arrest also. The family is said to be convinced that the police killed Maung Maung and disposed of his body.
And so the list goes on. Cases that the AHRC has in recent times documented and submitted for the attention of the authorities and international agencies include the beating to death of Ko Thet Naing Oo by municipal officers and fire fighters, the brutal assaults on Ma Aye Aye Aung and her husband by local council members and on Ko Aung Myint Oo by police; and the murderous assault on Ko Than Htike by local council members, just to name a few.
Together these cases reveal a society not where authoritarian rule is successfully maintaining “the stability of the state”, as promised by Burma’s military regime, but rather a country where the rule of law is non-existent and government officers are increasingly running out of control. What are their key characteristics?
First, victims are targetted in common criminal inquiries: alleged possession of a small quantity of drugs; suspicion of petty theft, or urinating in a public place. None of these are the sort of celebrated political cases for which Burma usually obtains attention. But they are the sort that affects the overwhelmingly large number of people in the country.
Secondly, the assaults often involve personal grievances, either between the authorities and the victim or someone for whom the state officers are doing a favour. Khin Mar Lwin was assaulted by the police on behalf of a local family; a member of which was also allegedly allowed to get involved and sexually abuse her. Ma Aye Aye Aung was beaten up because she parked her betel nut cart at the front of a restaurant owned by the local council head.
Thirdly, ordinary criminal procedures are completely ignored. Maung Ne Zaw and his friends were illegally detained from the start. Ma Nyo Kyi’s family were not informed that she was taken into custody. Ko Aung Myint Oo was attacked because when he was first instructed by a police officer to go to the local station with him he was not given a reason and declined to follow. The Kyimyintaing police reportedly locked up a baby.
Fourthly, there is no concept of–or interest in–investigation methods. The only techniques known are to arrest, detain and beat up. From this the police learn who they have on their hands and what they are worth: will their family come to get them or not? How much money will they have to give? Should they proceed with fixing a case?
Fifthly, the victims have next to no possibility of lodging a complaint that will get the actual perpetrators investigated and tried. Maung Ne Zaw’s mother repeatedly attempted to have a case opened against the police who killed her son. As a result, she was constantly harassed, she says, and finally fled to Thailand near the end of June. The vigorous efforts to get justice by Ko Thet Naing Oo’s mother instead led to the arrest of some bystanders to her son’s killing: also poor and innocent civilians. Aung Myint Oo’s mother reportedly gave up attempts to register complaints against the police who assaulted her son and has since figured that if you can’t beat them, join them: in her case, by working an illegal lottery syndicate with the police sergeant who instigated the violence.
In a December 2005 country report, the UN agency ostensibly responsible for monitoring crime, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, wrote that in Burma “there is very little violent crime: not even anecdotal reports of murders, rapes or kidnappings… In general, crime does not appear to be a major concern among the population”.
From its work on Burma, the Asian Human Rights Commission has come to the opposite conclusion; in fact, the AHRC can state without qualification that this is one of the most fantastically incorrect statements that it has ever seen written on a country which is already widely misunderstood and misrepresented. There is no doubt that in Burma today violent crime is a cause for grave public anxiety, and that the main perpetrators of crime are state agents: police, soldiers, auxiliary fire fighters and municipal security forces (many of whom are former soldiers), local government council officials and others.
The Asian Human Rights Commission calls upon all international organisations concerned with the situation in Burma to study what is happening in the country more closely and understand that it is a country that has been rightly described as existing under the “un-rule of law”. The notion of “state stability” upon which the military government founds its prolonged rule is a myth. Burma is a society in which the least-talented govern and administer, and in which two-dimensional institutions are being held together by fear. This is the starting point for any understanding of Burma and what goes on in it. This is the starting point for any understanding of why innocent people can be beaten to death for nothing and the perpetrators suffer no consequences.
