The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing to you with regards to many serious allegations of brutal and oftentimes murderous violent crimes by state officers in Myanmar, which it understands should be a subject of concern for your office.
Some of the alleged cases that have come to the attention of the AHRC in recent times include the following:
1. Death due to assault in custody of Ma Nyo Kyi, 23, of Shwemyaing Ward, Myohla, Bago Division in Yetashe Township on 19 June 2006 by Police Deputy Superintendent Zaw Lwin and subordinates.
2. Death in custody due to assault of Maung Ne Zaw, 28, of Myoma Ward, Mohnyin, Kachin State on 2 May 2006 by Police Superintendent Khin Maung Nyi and four subordinates of the Special Anti-drug Squad Police stationed in Hopin on March 14.
3. Death due to assault in custody of Ko Thein Shwe, 42, of Ngayoatkaung Village, Myinkakone, Bogalay, Ayeyawaddy Division on 14 February 2006 by township police Station Officer U Tin Htun and subordinates.
4. Death due to assault of Ko Thet Naing Oo, 40, of Bawga Ward, Kyimyintaing, Yangon on 18 March 2006 by police, including two patrolling officers, Aung Myat Thu and Tin Maung Ni, with members of the municipal market security force and auxiliary fire fighters.
5. Death due to assault of Ko Than Htike, 34, of Myothit Ward, Ngathaing Chaung, Yegyi, Ayeyawaddy Division on 31 December 2005 by U Aung Myint Thein, chairman of the Myothit Ward Peace & Development Council and four other council members.
6. Abduction and death in illegal custody of Ko Min Soe, 26, of Panaw Village, Daik-U, Bago Division in December 2005 by U Win Myint, chairman of the Panaw Village Peace & Development Council and others.
7. Disappearance while in custody of U Maung Maung, 40, of Dawpon, Yangon Division on 3 July 2006 after arrest by township police officers on June 27.
8. Serious injuries in custody due to assault of Ma Khin Mar Lwin, 24, of Ohbo ward, Kyimyintaing, Yangon on 8 June 2006 by township police Station Officer Ne Myo and others.
9. Serious injuries due to assault at time of arrest of Ko Aung Myint Oo, 30, of Pyitharyar Ward 3, Meikhtila, Mandalay Division on 18 January 2006 by Deputy Superintendent Aung Than Htay of Meikhtila Township Police Station 3 and around 13 other police officers.
10. Serious assault and illegal arrest of U Htun Shwe, 70, and family members of Ward 3, Daik-U, Bago Division on 19 March 2006 by a large force of police including officers Min Aye and Tin Soe Win.
11. Serious repeated assault of Ma Aye Aye Aung & Ko Tint Zaw, of Myoma Ward 4, Meikhtila, Mandalay Division on 20-21 September 2005 by Ko Zaw Maung, chairman of Myoma Ward 4 Peace & Development Council and 14 others.
12. Rape of 15-year-old girl on 25 January 2006 by U Aung Myo Min, an executive of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, in Ohnpin Ward, Kyonemangei, Wakhema, Ayeyawaddy Division.
These are a tiny fraction of the total number of such incidents that are occurring in Myanmar on a daily basis. We are aware of others, and even from Hong Kong are kept reliably informed of the prevalence of violent crimes in that country.
It therefore comes as a surprise to read the following statement on page 27 of your December 2005 country report on Myanmar:
“As in many tightly controlled and socially conservative societies, there is very little violent crime: not even anecdotal reports of murders, rapes or kidnappings. There is some petty crime, especially burglaries, but these [sic] tend to be non-violent. In general, crime does not appear to be a major concern among the population…”
Similar statements are repeated elsewhere in the report.
What is the basis for this statement? Upon what research, studies or other work conducted by your office have you reached this conclusion? Do you in fact have any grounds for making such an assertion? Or is this just intended as a passing comment, a personal observation of the author that we should not take seriously or attribute to your office?
The Asian Human Rights Commission believes that this statement that violent crime is not a concern for the people of Myanmar is without any foundation and categorically rejects it. It is perhaps the most profoundly incorrect statement that we have ever read concerning the situation of crime and justice in Myanmar. In fact, not only is violent crime a cause for great anxiety among the public in Myanmar; its cause is the state officers themselves. Myanmar is no exception from most other countries in Southeast Asia in that the primary cause of lawlessness in Myanmar today is the violent crime committed by police, soldiers, local government officials and officials of mass-movement bodies, and municipal security forces and other auxiliary units.
Where the police, state authorities and their accomplices are themselves responsible for perpetrating and instigating crimes with impunity, what possibility is there that other criminal activities can be addressed? How can the UN Office on Drugs and Crime expect to deal with the massive narcotics trade of Myanmar or “transnational organised crime” with which it seems more concerned than day-to-day criminality when the state agents themselves are the planners and agents of killing, torture, abduction and cross-border trafficking? How can it expect to sincerely raise questions about violence against women and children or arbitrary detention without recognition of this reality? That violent crime by state officers is the primary cause of lawlessness in Myanmar appears to be an enormous and glaring omission from the work of your agency there.
The AHRC has identified some of the main characteristics of the routine criminal violence committed by the police and other state agents in Myanmar as including the following:
1. The victims are ordinary people targetted in common criminal inquiries;
2. The victims are mostly innocent;
3. The victims are often targetted due to personal grievances or out of favours to others;
4. Ordinary criminal procedures are completely ignored;
5. There is no concept of–or interest in–investigation methods; and,
6. The victims have no possibility of complaint.
The Asian Human Rights Commission submits that if you wish to address the joint concerns of drugs and crime in Myanmar then it is necessary to start with these basic issues of policing and victimisation. In particular, we suggest that you are obliged to recognise that the main perpetrators of crime in Myanmar are persons in positions of authority. This fact is strangely absent from your documentation. Yet it is relevant not only to addressing the day-to-day violent crimes committed by the police and other local authorities described above but every other sort of crime in Myanmar.
We call upon you also to review the contents of your December 2005 report and retract its patently inaccurate and misleading contents. We trust that the abovementioned cases will at least serve to overcome your peculiar inability to uncover “even anecdotal reports of murders, rapes or kidnappings” and that you will review the nature of your work in Myanmar in light of the same. We look forward to your active inquiries, as well as the necessary review of your understanding of crime, criminality and criminals in Myanmar. We would be most happy to assist you with the same to the full extent that we are able.
Yours sincerely
Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong
