TORTURED DETAINEE SURVIVES BURMESE PRISON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 001112 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO PACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/15/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM BM SUBJECT: TORTURED DETAINEE SURVIVES BURMESE PRISON REF: RANGOON 1099 RANGOON 00001112 001.6 OF 002 Classified By: Political Officer Chelsia Wheeler for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d) ¶1. (C) Summary. The chairman of an NLD township branch discussed the torture he underwent at interrogation centers and at Insein prison. USDA thugs arrested him on September 26 and sent him to interrogation centers for several days of torture and questioning, before transferring him to Insein Prison where he stayed until his October 25 release. Even though he met discontented low-level officials, he maintains doubts Than Shwe and other senior leaders are sincere in promoting dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi. End Summary. The arrest -------------- ¶2. (C) NLD Pabaedan Township Chairman Htay Lwin met on November 14 with Poloff to discuss his recent month-long detention. USDA thugs, apparently wielding full arrest authority, seized him along with approximately 17 other protesters and monks on September 26, the first day of the brutal government crackdown. The thugs loaded the entire group into waiting trucks which contained other protesters, some of whom had been tied down. They were all transferred to the interrogation camp at the Government Technological Institute (GTI),along with hundreds of other demonstrators from all over the city. Torture at interrogations centers -------------- ¶3. (C) Htay Lwin spent five days in two separate interrogation centers, and witnessed police and thugs beating the prisoners with rubber sticks and forcing them to hold their hands over their heads and kneel. During his imprisonment, he observed approximately thirty monks, whose bodies revealed bruises and cuts from beatings they received. He noted that younger monks appeared to be more severely injured. When being transferred between interrogation camps, police forced prisoners to lie face-down on truck beds, although he said that one officer gave him a towel to rest his chin on to cushion his ride. While in the interrogation camps, police denied Htay Lwin food and often hit him. Their goal, he said, was to obtain a confession from him. The police wanted him to admit that not only did the NLD secretly lead the monk protests, but they also altered the protests from their original religious tone to a more political one. Conditions at Insein slightly more humane -------------- ¶4. (C) In comparison to the interrogation camps, conditions at Insein Prison where he arrived on September 29 were better, Htay Lwin commented. Younger officers treated him with some degree of respect, and the beatings ceased. Nevertheless, he described the food as not fit even for dogs and said that police and intelligence officers awakened him nightly for extensive questioning. The police also denied him medical care, which he needed for a broken leg and for his chronic high blood pressure. He suffered from severe depression while in detention and wondered how people who lived there for years could remain sane. Dissatisfaction among low-level government employees -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Throughout the arrest and detention process, Htay Lwin observed several instances of dissatisfaction among low-level government employees. Younger officers at the prison were less inclined to torture him, and one ex-soldier, who is now a prisoner, told him that the conditions for prisoners were often better than soldiers' field conditions, where food was not always available. Despite this discontent, Htay Lwin expressed pessimism about the future for Burma. He said that the government is using the facade of talks with Aung San Suu Kyi to buy enough time to destroy the NLD. He remains RANGOON 00001112 002.2 OF 002 committed to the cause of democracy and was happy to see that a new generation had taken up the banner during the protests in September. Comment -------------- ¶6. (C) Htay Lwin's account corroborates those of others also detained at GTI. His belief that the government is not genuinely interested in dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi echoes a wide-spread pessimism from a large part of the pro-democracy activists who have seen the regime sabotage previous dialogues with ASSK. The fact that arrests continue further raises doubts about the Than Shwe regime's sincerity in pursuing genuine dialogue and reconciliation. VILLAROSA