Monks flee crackdown as reports of brutality emerge

Ian MacKinnon, South-east Asia correspondent
Thursday October 4, 2007
The Guardian

Scores of Burmese monks were stranded in Rangoon's railway station yesterday while trying to flee the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests that has left thousands languishing in prison.

Bus drivers refused to take the russet-robed monks, fearing the security forces would cut off fuel supplies for their vehicles if they accepted the fares, even as the military conducted further raids and made dozens of arrests.

Within hours of the departure of the UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who was charged with resolving the political crisis that has gripped the country and left at least 13 dead, eight military trucks took away prisoners arrested in early morning swoops on homes near the Shwedagon pagoda.

Troops with loudspeakers toured Rangoon's suburbs, threatening and cajoling terrified residents and warning that they would arrest anyone they suspected of taking part in the demonstrations that swelled to 100,000 people before security forces crushed the uprising with beatings, tear gas and bullets.

"You must stay inside," the soldiers warned in their pronouncements. "Don't come out. We have photographs of the people we're looking for. We will arrest them."

There is mounting concern over the conditions in which the detainees - put at more than 2,000 by Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma - are being held.

There is also widespread belief among diplomats that the death toll could be much higher than the 13 acknowledged. From lists of cross-checked names, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an exiles' media group based in Oslo, believes the number of dead in the violent street clashes stands at 138.

Fearing the violence that was to come, a Burmese army major, Htay Win, deserted from his unit in Rangoon before the killings began. He fled to Thailand in search of asylum, and yesterday explained why.

"I knew the plan to beat and shoot the monks, and if I had stayed I would have had to follow those orders," said Major Htay, 43, yesterday. "But because I'm a Buddhist I didn't want to follow those orders. I did not want to kill the monks."

More than 1,000 monks who gave the lead in 12 days of demonstrations were detained in repeated raids on monasteries across Rangoon and throughout the country. Little is known of their fate and there is concern that those severely beaten when they were seized have not received medical care.

The DVB has shown a video of a bloodied and bruised man with a shaven head dressed in a strip of russet cloth floating face down in a filthy pool. The opposition group said it was filmed on Sunday in the Pazondaung area of Rangoon, and is a sign of the regime's brutality.

Shari Villarosa, the US charge d'affaires in Burma, said her staff had visited up to 15 monasteries in Rangoon and all were empty, although it was unclear if the monks had been arrested or had fled to their home villages.

"I know the monks are not in their monasteries," she said. "Where are they? How many are dead? How many are arrested?"

But yesterday 149 women - thought to be nuns - and 80 monks were freed following a raid on their Mingala Yama monastery in Rangoon. They were held with around 1,000 others at the Government Technical Institute in Rangoon's Insein neighbourhood, close to the notorious prison.

One monk in his mid-20s gave Reuters a glimpse of the conditions inside the crumbling compound, where detainees were divided into four categories for interrogation: passersby, onlookers, supporters, and active participants in the demonstrations.

"We were forced to change into civilian dress before they interrogated us," the monk said, although accepting they were not officially disrobed. "They questioned us day and night, but we were fed two meals a day."