Narinjara News


Burmese Junta Move Prisoners from East to West

Buthidaung, 27^th July 03: Eight prisoners allegedly from Mungywa, under Sagaing Division, northern part of Burma Proper were moved to Buthidaung prison, in the western Burma bordering with Bangladesh.

According to an eyewitness the eight Burmese prisoners were taken to Buthidaung aboard the Dahanyawaddy  3, a passenger vessel owned by the Inland Water Transport Corporation on 21^st July.  The prisoners were escorted by twelve police forces led by Win Maung, the Township Police officer of Sittwe, the capital of the western Burmese Rakhine State. 

The prisoners were in civilian clothes, handcuffed in pairs and seemed to be given special protection. They were placed in a cabin of the vessel, told a crew in the ship.  Among the eight prisoners, one was middle-aged while two were bareheaded, which indicates that the latter two must be Buddhist monks.    

The Dhanyawaddy  3 touched the Buthidaung jetty at 3.30 in the afternoon.  There were a large convoy of police constables in the jetty and no civilian was allowed to either get down or up the Dhanyawaddy  3 motor vessel until the prisoners were allowed to get down.

The passengers in the vessel gathered that the prisoners might have been arrested from the spot of the Depeyin Massacre, and they must be high-profile leaders of the National League for Democracy, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, for which there was high alert among the police in Buthidaung.  Many analysts are of the opinion that the ruling Burmese junta, SPDC, have moved the political prisoners allegedly to cut off any links with the members of their families or
other near and dear ones.

Min Ko Naing, the student leader of the 1988 democracy upheaval in Burma, was arrested in 1989 and has for most of the prison term been kept at Sittwe Prison, in Rakhine State, far away from his home, in an attempt to keep him detached from his near and dear ones. 

 “It is a regular practice intensively used by the Burmese junta to isolate the political prisoners and keep them in undisclosed places.  The latest example being keeping popular leader Daw Suu Kyi isolated in an undisclosed prison in the face of wide international pressure and criticism,” said a retired police officer available at Buthidaung.  #