Jailed and tortured in Myanmar

Paying the price

The terrible fate of two brave men

Feb 11th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

IT TAKES great courage and commitment to translate for a foreign journalist in Myanmar. Two men who helped The Economist after Cyclone Nargis, which killed some 140,000 people in 2008, were rounded up last September for opposing the ruling junta.

The men are held in Insein prison in the main city, Yangon. Information about their conditions and treatment is hard to come by. But the latest reports are horrifying. Khine Kyaw Moe has reportedly been hooded, half-suffocated, savagely beaten, half-starved and then fed contaminated food. He is said to be very sick. There is no recent news of another colleague, Tun Lun Kyaw. The two men were earlier seen together at the prison. They were weeping, and looked emaciated and broken.

Both men are from the north-western state of Rakhine (formerly Arakan), which is rich in natural gas yet very poor, and home to some of Myanmar’s many oppressed ethnic minorities. Along with at least 13 other students arrested around the same time, they are accused of belonging to the All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress, which the regime calls a terrorist organisation, but professes belief in a peaceful struggle for democracy. That they had helped the foreign press will have worsened their plight.

Myanmar’s best-known political prisoner, the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is detained at home in Yangon. Besides her, more than 2,100 other political prisoners are held, all in squalid and brutal conditions. Many are serving sentences of up to 65 years for peaceful political activities. Former detainees say that torture is routine, and that medical attention is often denied even when prisoners fall gravely ill.

Under a “road-map for democracy”, Myanmar will this year vote in a “multiparty election”. Miss Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, is deciding whether to take part. It is a difficult choice. Joining in would add legitimacy to a process with a preordained outcome—army dominance. But no other sort of change is on offer. This week a court sentenced a Burmese-born American activist, Nyi Nyi Aung, to three years in prison for forging an identity card and violating immigration law. One League precondition to taking part in the election is the release of all political prisoners. The regime, however, seems intent only on adding to their number.

Source :http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15498377