BURMA: NEW SECRET POLICE SPECIAL UNITS

C O N F I D E N T I A L RANGOON 001326 SIPDIS TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL USPACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/19/2013 TAGS: PGOV PREL BM SUBJECT: BURMA: NEW SECRET POLICE SPECIAL UNITS REF: RANGOON 1314 Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.5 (B,D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: In the last few months, the SPDC created two new Office of the Chief, Military Intelligence (OCMI) special units in Rangoon to focus on monitoring and responding to political challenges to the new 7-point roadmap. The offices, Special Unit Number 1 and Special Unit Number 2, have authority to arrest, interrogate, and detain suspects without notifying the 26 existing Ward-level OCMI offices, and may also have a mandate to support the execution of the seven-point roadmap to democracy. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) U Win Naing, a local political operator briefly detained in late September by OCMI (see reftel),told Poloff that a few months ago, OCMI opened two new special units in northern Rangoon evidently dedicated to handling only the most sensitive of political cases. As proof of this, Naing cited how he was arrested and taken not to the local OCMI office, one of 26 in the Rangoon area, but to a new OCMI office on the north end of Rangoon. He described it as OCMI Rangoon Division #2 Special Unit, and explained that this new unit is much more powerful than Rangoon's 26 local Township OCMI units. The 26 different township OCMI units and three special support units are each commanded by a major. The two new Special Units are each commanded by a lieutenant colonel and have three majors as deputies. After his release later that day, U Win Naing was told by his local Township OCMI office contact that they had been completely unaware of his arrest, questioning, and release until after the fact. ¶3. (C) Through his nine-hour questioning by OCMI #2 Special Unit was quite civil, Win Naing also said that while on a bathroom break he saw two interrogation rooms where the prisoners were in handcuffs and blindfolds, and were kept standing during their interrogation. Win Naing also said OCMI required him to sign a secrecy agreement regarding his questioning, which delayed his reporting the arrests to western diplomats and news media for two weeks. Win Naing said he believed the new Special Units were designed to be an upgrade of the OCMI. ¶3. (C) COMMENT: This is the first time Post has received information of these new OCMI Special Units. The SPDC is not tolerating any public opposition regarding the roadmap or any other political issue. However, the SPDC has less control over the ethnic leaders, who publicly reject the roadmap and a Constitutional Convention unless the democratic opposition is fully involved in the process. It is possible that the SPDC created the Special Units to assist in pushing forward the seven-point roadmap, by focusing the Units specifically on interdicting anti-roadmap activities and by also actively pressuring opposition politicians to join in the process. It appears that the new unit was responsible for sounding out U Win Naing in his willingness to attending a new Constitutional Convention, despite his publicly stated opposition of the roadmap in its present form. If this proves to be true, the new OCMI Special Units will become very well known to opposition politicians. END COMMENT. Martinez