Burma: Dissident Dies Under “Questioning”
The Associated Press is reporting that a Burmese exile group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, has announced that a well-known dissident has died while being questioned by the military junta that controls Burma. The report cannot be independently verified, but the group has been accurate in the past. The report indicates that the body was promptly cremated by the authorities.
YANGON, Myanmar - A member of Myanmar's besieged opposition party has died under interrogation by security forces, an exile group said Wednesday.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners also said that security officers had been threatening dissidents' relatives and neighbors in order to find information on the whereabouts of those involved in recent mass protests against 45 years of military rule.
"The security forces have become more severe in raiding houses of, and searching for, anyone whom they suspect to have been involved in the protests," it said.
The Myanmar exile group, made up of former political prisoners, said authorities had recently informed the family of Win Shwe, 42, that he had died under interrogation in the central Myanmar region of Sagaing. He and five colleagues were arrested on Sept. 26.
The body of Win Shwe, a member of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, was cremated at the detention center, the group said. The report could not be independently verified, although in the past the group has provided detailed, accurate information on political prisoners in the country.
The NLD won a landslide election victory in 1989 and is recognized by the government, even though the parliament was never allowed to convene by the military junta.
Western governments continue to look up at the sky and hum cheerful tunes. Agam has links to reports of secret government crematorium working overtime to dispose of an unknown number of bodies.
First up is the most recent, a very disturbing account of the methods used by SPADCO killers to dispose of the bodies of their victims. Wai to Jotman (a new discovery for me, and also writing from Bangkok). Jotman has been covering the Burma situation very well, so check it out.
The Times UK:
THE Burmese army has burnt an undetermined number of bodies at a crematorium sealed off by armed guards northeast of Rangoon over the past seven days, ensuring that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known.
The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys…
Horrifying rumours are sweeping the city that some of those cremated were severely injured people thrust into the ovens alive, but these have been treated with extreme caution by independent observers and have not been verified.
However, it is widely accepted that the cremations began on the night of Friday, September 28, more than 24 hours after soldiers opened fire on unarmed Buddhist monks and civilians demonstrating on the streets of Rangoon.
When Mr. Gambari was being hustled out of Rangoon immediately upon his arrival, strung along for several more days while he waited for his audience with Burma's butcher-in-chief, and taken to witness a junta-produced show of "popular support" up in Shan State, I wrote here that the delay was to enable the killers to have enough time to hide the bodies. After all, they wouldn't want Mr. Gambari to accidentally notice all that crematorium smoke, or covered trucks heading out to the jungle. But as Jotman notes from experience, the junta is very good at record keeping so it may still be possible to know the true extent of their crimes at some time in the future.
That might have interrupted the trade seminar, after all.
World news | Gaius Wednesday, 10 October , 2007
By Maggie, Wednesday, 10 October , 2007 @ 9:30 am
Even if just “some” of the stories are true they are enough that the world community, the stinking UN, the lazy-assed media, and the self-serving human rights groups (including the International Red Cross) should be demanding an immediate and open investigation into this …
But no. What are they concerned with? Terrorists being held at Gitmo.
By terrence, Wednesday, 10 October , 2007 @ 11:51 am
This head-in-the-sand (or rectum) lack of action is really quite sad. But, not surprising. “Democracies talk; tyrannies act.” Bushitler is EEVVIIIL, and each of his sins must be reported endlessly.
The media, and UN, and “peace” activists are disgusting.