BURMA/MYANMAR: Police, soldiers still getting away with
murder
Despite the political and social changes in Burma
(Myanmar) of the last two years, police and soldiers
continue to enjoy impunity for the murder and torture of
civilians. Despite the constant efforts of the families of
victims to obtain justice, the military and police
institutions are resistant to efforts to have perpetrators
in their ranks held to account for their crimes.
Among the
cases that the Asian Human Rights Commission has in recent
times issued appeals on are those of Myo Myint Swe, tortured
to death by the police during 2011; U Than Htun, also
tortured to death by the police, during 2013; and Zaw Min
Oo, whom three soldiers murdered on a riverside in the same
year. In none of these cases have the exhaustive efforts by
family members and their supporters resulted in any form of
satisfactory action against the perpetrators. Rather, in
each case we observe a pattern that involved agencies have
taken some kind modest administrative measures against the
accused, saying that they are for some reason unrelated to
the actual offence, and leaving matters at that.
The AHRC
in 2011 issued an appeal on the case of Myo Myint Swe, whom
policemen in Rangoon, or Yangon, during the same year
brutally tortured to death over his alleged part in a murder
case. Despite the overwhelming evidence of torture,
including eyewitnesses and photographic evidence, a doctor
recorded his death as being due to natural causes. Observing
the records of the extent of injuries to the body, a judge
concluded her post mortem inquiry in 2012 that it was
difficult to believe that the young man died naturally
(AHRC-STM-251-2012). Despite this finding, no further
investigation has been conducted against the police, and
lawyers are pessimistic that they can take the case forward.
Myo Myint Swe's family has worked tirelessly to pressure
the concerned authorities into action but to date their
dozens of letters and meetings—including with the UN
Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar—have been to
no avail.
In 2013 police in Pyi, or Pyay, central Burma,
tortured U Than Htun to death in another criminal case
(AHRC-UAC-098-2013). Than Htun was among a group of farmers
struggling to reobtain illegally confiscated farmlands, and
he had already been prosecuted for trespass onto the land,
among other matters. Like in Myo Myint Swe's case,
extensive evidence exists to show that the police tortured
him to death: including eyewitness accounts, photographs and
other material evidence. Unlike in the former case, the
doctor also resisted pressure from the police to collude
with them, the ordinary practice in Burma, and recorded the
death as unnatural. Despite the finding, both the township
and district level courts declined to pursue the matter,
finding that the injuries were not likely to have been
caused by someone else. On 7 October 2013 the Bago Region
High Court on appeal from the family overturned the findings
of the lower courts that nobody could be held responsible
for the death, but did not give a specific order on what
action should be taken next. Because the court gave no order
on further action, since that time
Three low-ranked
soldiers attacked Zaw Min Oo and his companion on a
riverbank in Pyi during 2013 nearby the Nawaday Bridge over
the Irrawaddy River (AHRC-UAC-122-2013). Zaw Min Oo died in
the attack while his companion survived by feigning death.
She ran to call for help and in a short time local search
parties had located the men, whom they took to the police.
The police initiated criminal proceedings but the commander
of the battalion where the men were stationed came and took
them from police custody. Although investigating police,
including from the specialised Criminal Investigation
Department, told the family and other persons involved that
they have enough evidence to prosecute and are sure that the
three soldiers are the perpetrators of the crime, the army
has refused to hand them over. Instead the battalion
conducted a court martial that absolved the men of any
responsibility in the crime. The court martial was closed
off from the family or other persons concerned with their
interests, and according to them all the authorities have
refused to deal with them or keep them informed of what has
happened to the alleged murderers. Even the men's
whereabouts are uncertain, with some reports suggesting they
are still being at their battalion camp, others that they
have been transferred elsewhere.
Each of these cases
speaks to the incredible efforts that relatives of persons
murdered by the police or military must go even to have
their voices heard in Burma today, as in the past, let alone
to have any effective action taken. The power of the police
and military is manifest by the fact that in the case of
Than Htun, even the accurately recorded death certificate
was insufficient to get the lower courts to move on the
case, and it was only in the high court that the possibility
of some kind of action against the accused was reopened. In
the Nawaday Bridge case, widespread public anger and the
involvement of many people in the search for and arrest of
the three police were insufficient to get them brought
before a civilian court.
The obvious problem here is that
the primary, or rather exclusive concern of those involved
in the maintenance and management of police and military
forces in Burma continues to be with the reputation and
integrity of their institutions. All responses to such
events, and public actions and criticisms, are designed to
devolve the institutions from any type of responsibility or
blame. With this purpose in mind, minor disciplinary action
is taken against accused officers, to signal to others that
the institution of which they are members suffers
inconveniences as a result of wayward behaviour—at least,
wayward behaviour resulting in death that attracts public
attention and condemnation. In the case of Than Htun, the
police station chief was demoted shortly afterwards, not,
supposedly, for the case of torture but for dereliction of
duty. In the Nawaday case, the three soldiers also received
punishment for breaches of discipline, independent from the
question of their role in the murder and attempted murder of
civilians. And as the purpose of such action is also to
offset the possibility of any further formal inquiries or
criminal actions, it is not only meaningless but also
counterproductive for the families and friends of victims
like those in these three cases.
The larger concern for
people in Burma at a time of political change and progress
on some fronts is that if those changes do not penetrate
institutional behaviour and impunity for grave crimes by
military and police personnel is not brought to an end, then
Burma's democratisation will prove to be ephemeral. If
greater political openness and participation do not
correspond with institutional changes for the defence of
human rights and prosecution of police and soldiers
responsible for crimes like these then people in Burma will
rightly be sceptical about the real meaning of the
much-vaunted change for their daily lives.
Of course,
large-scale institutional change after protracted military
dictatorship is nowhere an easy task, and in Burma it will
likely be more difficult than many other places. But it
should at least be possible, and is in fact essential, that
in cases such as those of Myo Myint Swe, U Than Tun and Zaw
Min Oo where the facts of the crimes are manifest and the
evidence for prosecution available, that if impunity is to
be ended the accused be prosecuted and punished for their
crimes; the families, compensated and offered other support
in accordance with international standards. Impunity needs
to be tackled both at the larger institutional level and as
well as one case at a time.
Therefore, the Asian Human
Rights Commission again calls for the prosecution and
penalization of those police and soldiers responsible for
the deaths of these persons, accompanied by other actions,
legally and institutionally, to bring an end to impunity of
the police and soldiers in Burma. In particular, the legal
barriers to prosecution of these persons, in the case of the
police through the Criminal Procedure Code and in the case
of the military through military regulations and orders,
need to be removed so as to enable ready prosecution of
accused persons in cases of this
sort.
ends
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