Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian (UK)
The military regime in Burma is still holding up to 2,500 people in prisons and labour camps around the country, and continues to arrest suspected dissidents, the British government claimed yesterday.
The crackdown on the protest movement has only served to make Burma more unstable, a senior British diplomat argued, with acts of resistance widespread.
He added that the country's long-running ethnic conflict between the regime and the Karen minority could deepen, with former fighters who had signed a ceasefire with the government now talking of a return to armed resistance.
The military junta has come under increasing pressure in the form of US and European sanctions targeted on the regime's money-making ventures and a rebuke from the UN security council.
However, the sanctions do not include the oil and gas sector, and Amnesty International yesterday said the junta was still receiving military equipment from China, Russia, Ukraine, and India.
The Burmese generals claim to have released all but 500 of the Buddhist monks and other demonstrators detained since last month's pro-democracy protests. But the senior British diplomat, briefing journalists yesterday on condition of anonymity, gave a "conservative estimate" that 2,000 to 2,500 were still being held and more were being picked up.
"There are substantial night-time raids going on. They have scooped up hundreds of people," the diplomat said.
British officials and human rights activists believe there are four main detention centres in Rangoon: a racecourse, the city's institute of technology, the Insein prison, and the Mingladon detention facility.
But the diplomat said detainees were increasingly being dispersed around the country, particularly to centres the regime calls New Life camps - gulags where detainees are used as forced labour.
"We are hearing from people who have been locked up directly ... the conditions in which they are being held: in excrement-smeared rooms, hundreds to a room, not fed, interrogated," he said.
The official death toll of the crackdown is 10, but the diplomat said: "We believe it is very many multiples of that."
The protesters are being tried in secret, facing a minimum sentence of two years. British officials believe those found guilty of participation in the protests would face more than seven years in jail, and the leaders could be imprisoned for 20 years.
The diplomat said the monks' treatment had outraged a profoundly religious nation. "The anger is quite extraordinary when you scratch the surface. In fact you barely need to do that," he said. "We are still seeing incidents of low-level resistance with rocks and bricks being thrown at the police at night."
The crackdown on the protest movement has only served to make Burma more unstable, a senior British diplomat argued, with acts of resistance widespread.
He added that the country's long-running ethnic conflict between the regime and the Karen minority could deepen, with former fighters who had signed a ceasefire with the government now talking of a return to armed resistance.
The military junta has come under increasing pressure in the form of US and European sanctions targeted on the regime's money-making ventures and a rebuke from the UN security council.
However, the sanctions do not include the oil and gas sector, and Amnesty International yesterday said the junta was still receiving military equipment from China, Russia, Ukraine, and India.
The Burmese generals claim to have released all but 500 of the Buddhist monks and other demonstrators detained since last month's pro-democracy protests. But the senior British diplomat, briefing journalists yesterday on condition of anonymity, gave a "conservative estimate" that 2,000 to 2,500 were still being held and more were being picked up.
"There are substantial night-time raids going on. They have scooped up hundreds of people," the diplomat said.
British officials and human rights activists believe there are four main detention centres in Rangoon: a racecourse, the city's institute of technology, the Insein prison, and the Mingladon detention facility.
But the diplomat said detainees were increasingly being dispersed around the country, particularly to centres the regime calls New Life camps - gulags where detainees are used as forced labour.
"We are hearing from people who have been locked up directly ... the conditions in which they are being held: in excrement-smeared rooms, hundreds to a room, not fed, interrogated," he said.
The official death toll of the crackdown is 10, but the diplomat said: "We believe it is very many multiples of that."
The protesters are being tried in secret, facing a minimum sentence of two years. British officials believe those found guilty of participation in the protests would face more than seven years in jail, and the leaders could be imprisoned for 20 years.
The diplomat said the monks' treatment had outraged a profoundly religious nation. "The anger is quite extraordinary when you scratch the surface. In fact you barely need to do that," he said. "We are still seeing incidents of low-level resistance with rocks and bricks being thrown at the police at night."
5 comments:
Good, that is what government supposed to do, that is to round up all troublemakers and isolate them from society to prevent them from getting innocent people kill.
11:31AM how long do you want to rule as dictator? I don't think you can stay very long. Tina mean kar gis georn ti nus mean kar reu
bomras. Be prepair yourself in hell.
just until people achieved basic need. Every stage of development required different set of control, if you know what I mean.
It's remind to me 1998 in Cambodia...
Hoping that burmese don't stop right now.. until they get their freedom of speech and choice.
GOOD LUCK!
They will get freedom of everything once the country get out of poverty, and they needn't do anything for that. All they have to do is their share of the job that is needed to get the country out of poverty.
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