7/12/07 Burma is lying about democracy protest death toll, says rights group

Burma is lying about democracy protest death toll, says rights group

December 8, 2007

Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor

The Burmese junta is lying about the numbers of people killed in its crackdown on democracy protesters in September, and hundreds more opponents of the regime have disappeared without trace, according to two influential reports released yesterday.
At least 31 people died, up to 4,000 were arrested and 1,000 are still detained, a document to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday claims. The 77-page report by the UN special rapportuer Paulo Sergio Pinheiro was partially corroborated by a separate assessment by the US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch.
Mr Pinheiro based his findings on a four-day trip to Burma last month. He described “military dog cells” in Rangoon’s Insein Prison, where detainees are locked for days in two-metre-high cubes guarded by dogs, with neither toilets nor ventilation.
Human Rights Watch’s 130-page document, based on clandestine interviews with 100 witnesses to the violence, describes in detail the deaths of 20 people. They were shot, run over, beaten or tortured by soldiers, police and civilian militiamen in the largest city of Rangoon alone. In one incident soldiers shot directly into a crowd of protesters. One witness said that the bullets came “like rain”.

“The Government crackdown included baton charges and beatings of unarmed demonstrators, mass arbitrary arrests and repeated instances where weapons were fired shoot-to-kill,” the report says. “Many more people were killed than the Burmese authorities are willing to admit.”
The unrest began in August with small-scale protests against sudden increases in the cost of fuel and groceries. Early in September a march of monks in the town of Pakkoku was suppressed violently by the Army, infuriating devout Buddhists. Two weeks later tens of thousands of people were occupying the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay in daily demonstrations, led by columns of barefoot monks. On September 26 the authorities pounced, beating and arresting monks at the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in the centre of the city. The following day troops fired into crowds of people who had gathered to continue the protests.
Observers filmed the shooting at point-blank range of the Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai by a soldier. The worst massacre documented in the Human Rights Watch report was in front of the Tamwe Basic Education High School No 3 in central Rangoon, where at least eight people, including two teenage boys, died.
After firing teargas and bullets into the air, soldiers began shooting at a crowd of protesters, killing several. Several more died when an army truck was driven into a crowd. One protester was shot dead as he cowered helplessly in a metal barrel.
“Harsh repression continues, and the Government is still lying about the extent of the deaths and detentions,” Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3017089.ece