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Burma Continues Arrests of Activists    [

    Burmese Authorities Arrest Two Prominent Dissidents
    By Nora Boustany
    The Washington Post

    Wednesday 14 November 2007

Roundup continues in wake of protests.

    Two prominent Burmese dissidents have been detained, exiled activists said yesterday, as the military government continues to hunt down and arrest dissident monks and other organizers of September's pro-democracy demonstrations.

    The two are a monk who goes by the name of U Gambira, a leader of the All-Burma Monks Alliance who has been on the run since September, and Su Su Nway, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party who has consistently challenged the junta in recent years.

    Su Su Nway, 35, was detained yesterday as she was putting up leaflets next to a Rangoon hotel where U.N. human rights investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro was staying. He arrived in Burma on Sunday to survey human rights violations in the wake of a bloody crackdown by the junta, but his presence in the country, which the ruling generals call Myanmar, did not deter troops from continuing to take more prisoners.

    The government has acknowledged that at least 3,000 people have been arrested and that an undisclosed number have been released.

    Su Su Nway, a labor activist, stood up for labor rights in defiance of the military government two years ago and has been in and out of jail several times. She is best known in human rights circles for winning a historic court ruling against local government officials in 2005 by invoking international labor standards.

    Her activism began when government officials forced her and her neighbors to repair a village road without pay. In bringing her complaint, she relied on a 1999 law that allowed reporting on labor rights abuses to the International Labor Organization. The army often uses civilians as porters and forces them to walk ahead of soldiers to test for mines.

    Su Su Nway's legal victory was the first against the junta's long-standing practice of forced labor. But in its aftermath, Su Su Nway, who suffers from a heart condition, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of defaming authorities. Her struggle was recognized last year with the John Humphrey Freedom Award, named after a McGill University law professor. She had quietly remained in regular contact with journalists until her cellphone was disconnected in early September.

    Because of her frail condition, she went underground during the recent crackdown, emerging only rarely. On Oct. 27, she laid flowers at the spot where Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai was gunned down by security forces while recording video of demonstrators in Rangoon.

    News of U Gambira's arrest - there are conflicting accounts of when he was detained - began filtering out of Burma on Monday to democracy groups in the West. The monk had published an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Nov. 4 in which he discussed how Burmese had become "galvanized as never before" in confronting the generals. He also analyzed the global response to the repression that followed the uprising.

    "Video and the Internet have allowed the world to witness the brutal response directed by Gen. Than Shwe, Burma's de facto ruler and military leader," he wrote. "Once again the streets in Rangoon and Mandalay ran red with the blood of innocent civilians seeking to save our country from the moral, social, political and economic crises that consume us."

    News of the arrests came as the U.N. envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, said in a briefing to the Security Council that the government had assured him that it "would release more detainees and that no more arrests would be carried out."

    Gambari also said he would begin a search to replace Charles Petrie, the senior U.N. representative in Burma, whom the junta has ordered expelled. The decision to find a replacement means the world body has effectively yielded to Burma's demand that the diplomat leave the country.

    The junta issued its order Nov. 2 in retaliation for Petrie's public endorsement of the pro-democracy protests. Gambari had raised concern about the expulsion order during a six-day visit to the region, but he did not press the government to reverse its decision.

    Gambari said an acting representative would be appointed by Dec. 5.

    He told the Security Council that his visit produced mixed results. Among achievements was a commitment by the generals to begin talks with Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who is under house arrest and whose party won 1990 elections, only to be denied power by the junta.

    But Gambari also voiced "serious concerns" about "ongoing reports of human rights abuses" by the authorities and questioned the government's willingness to "move forward in a new direction."

    Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said during the session, "There should be a stop to ongoing arrests and detentions, and an immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and detainees, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi."

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    Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

 

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    Burma Continues Arrests of Activists
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 14 November 2007

    Yangon, Myanmar - Myanmar's military junta arrested three more activists Wednesday, witnesses said, surging ahead with a crackdown even as it hosted a U.N. human rights investigator and insisted that all arrests had stopped.

    The latest to be nabbed were at least three people handing out anti-regime pamphlets at the busy Thiri Mingalar fruit and vegetable market in Yangon, shoppers and other witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals from the government.

    "I saw at least three young men in white shirts being arrested by market security officials," said one of the witnesses, a market worker. The leaflets included a statement from the United Nations and one saying that forcing people to take part in pro-junta rallies violated the Geneva Conventions.

    The incident followed earlier arrests of two prominent dissidents. One came Tuesday as U.N. human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro met with Cabinet ministers in the junta's remote, jungle capital Naypyitaw.

    Pinheiro's five-day visit is part of an investigation into widespread allegations of human rights abuses since the regime's violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September. He was "given assurances" by the junta that he would be able to interview detainees before leaving, the U.N. said in a statement.

    Pinheiro was to confer with the government's foreign and labor ministers before returning to Yangon on Thursday.

    At a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, the United States and other Western countries deplored the arrests of the two dissidents, saying they raised doubts about the ruling junta's sincerity in moving toward democracy and cooperating with the United Nations.

    Su Su Nway, a prominent female activist who has been on the run for more than two months, was arrested Tuesday morning in Yangon as she tried to place a leaflet near a hotel where Pinheiro was staying, exiled Myanmar dissidents in Thailand said.

    U Gambira, a Buddhist monk who helped spearhead the pro-democracy demonstrations in Yangon was arrested several days ago, said Stanley Aung of the Thailand-based dissident group National League for Democracy-Liberated Area.

    U Gambira, also known as U Gambiya, was a leader of the All-Burma Monks alliance, a group established to support pro-democracy protests after small demonstrations began in August.

    The junta had placed him on a wanted list, announcing on state television in early October that he was one of four monks it was hunting down for leading the protests.

    Monks inspired and led the movement until it was crushed Sept. 26-27. The authorities began their crackdown by raiding several monasteries in Yangon in the middle of the night and hauling monks away.

    The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners urged Pinheiro to try to meet with U Gambira in prison.

    "I am very worried about U Gambira," Bo Kyi, the head of the association said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "I fear he will be tortured."

    Other dissident groups also reported the monk's arrest, though details differed. Some said he was arrested Nov. 4, while others said Nov. 10.

    Addressing the U.N. Security Council, Myanmar's Ambassador U Kyaw Tint Swe insisted Tuesday there "had been no further arrests in connection with the demonstrations." He made no mention of Su Su Nway or U Gambira.

    But Britain's ambassador to the U.N., John Sawers, said Su Su Nway's detention "raises a question mark over the regime's" assurances to U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari days earlier that political arrests would stop.

    U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad denounced both arrests and demanded the junta "release all political prisoners" if it wants to show its commitment "to cooperating with the United Nations."

    Gambari said that if the arrests were confirmed, "it would be extremely worrisome because what we want to do is move forward, not back."

    Nevertheless, Gambari, who visited Myanmar last week for the second time since the September turmoil, told the Security Council he was making progress in nudging the junta toward meaningful dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition. He urged the Security Council to give his diplomatic effort time to succeed.

    "The situation is qualitatively different from what it was a few weeks ago," he said.

    Pinheiro has said his mission is to determine how many people were killed and detained in the crackdown. Myanmar authorities said 10 people were killed when troops opened fire on crowds of peaceful protesters Sept. 26 and 27. Diplomats and dissidents, however, say the death toll was much higher.

    The government acknowledged detaining almost 3,000 people but says it has released most of them. Most of the prominent political activists, however, remain in custody.

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    Associated Press Writer Alexandra Olson contributed to this report from the United Nations.