Description:
"The 26-year rule of General Ne Win?s Burma Socialist Programme Party came
to an end when Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Saw Maung led a military
coup on 18 September 1988. The coup followed months of pro-democracy
demonstrations throughout the country - and the deaths of thousands of
mostly peaceful demonstrators as a result of shootings by the army. Since
the coup, severe human rights violations, including mass arrests of
prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience, widespread
torture, summary trials, and extrajudicial executions continued to occur at
a very high level. Recent testimonies obtained by Amnesty International
describe these human rights abuses and indicate that real or imputed
critics of Myanmar?s military government run a high risk of being
imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured for the peaceful expression of their
political views.
The new military government pledged political and economic reforms
that appeared to go some way towards meeting the demands of pro-democracy
protesters. The authorities announced that elections to a new parliament
would take place in May 1990, following which a new constitution would be
drawn up to lay the foundation for a multi-party, parliamentary democracy.
For the first time since 1962 political opposition parties were permitted
to organize and were recognized by the government. However, the promised
transition to parliamentary democracy was marred by renewed repression even
as the new military government established itself. Hundreds of people were
shot in the weeks following the coup by troops who fired on demonstrators
without warning. Possibly thousands had been detained by the military
government by March 1990, many of them prisoners of conscience. Prisoners
of conscience included the main opposition leaders, many of whom were
arrested in July 1989 and officially disqualified by the SLORC from
standing in the elections. Evidence based on interviews conducted in November and December 1989
by Amnesty International from recently released political prisoners and
refugees who have fled the country suggests not only that torture and
unlawful killings of civilians in ethnic minority areas continue to be
widespread but that torture of political suspects occurs in other parts of
the country (i.e. non-ethnic minority areas). Several of those interviewed
had been prisoners of conscience, arrested, interrogated and tortured for
the peaceful exercise of their fundamental human rights. In the light of
this new information, Amnesty International is seriously concerned that any
person arrested for political reasons in Myanmar must be considered to be
at risk of torture by government security forces..."
Source/publisher:
Amnesty International (ASA 16-04-90)
Date of Publication:
1990-05-02
Date of entry:
2005-08-19
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
67.66 KB