Revelations that Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being held at Yangon’s notorious Insein jail without even a change of clothes since she was detained three weeks ago sparked outrage on Friday among diplomats and activists.
Britain’s Junior Foreign Minister for Asia Mike O’Brien said in London on Thursday that he was ”appalled to learn” that the Nobel peace laureate was being held ”in a two-room hut” at Insein on the outskirts of Yangon.
”I understand that she continues to wear the clothes in which she was arrested,” he said in a statement released on her 58th birthday.
Myanmar’s ruling generals said Aung San Suu Kyi was put under temporary ”protective custody” at an undisclosed location after May 30 clashes which broke out during a political tour of northern Myanmar.
Dissidents said her supporters were attacked by hundreds of members of a pro-junta organisation, in brutal clashes that left dozens dead.
But O’Brien said he was disturbed to learn that she was in fact being held under a draconian internal security law which allows for her detention without access to family or lawyers for 180 days.
”This completely discredits the regime’s claim that she is being held in ‘protective custody’,” he said.
The military government’s decision to put Aung San Suu Kyi in jail for the first time since her pro-democracy struggle began in 1988 represented a major escalation in Myanmar’s political tensions, analysts said.
Diplomats in Yangon said the generals were forcing Aung San Suu Kyi to endure extremely harsh conditions, particularly in light of hot weather in Myanmar where the rainy season is beginning.
”It’s very hard to know what’s going on in their heads. From what we know the conditions of detention are very harsh. Insein is not a comfortable place anyway,” said one diplomat.
”There is no air-conditioning and it’s very hot now in Yangon. As far as we know she is not receiving any special treatment.”
Observers of the military-run country said the British allegations indicated Aung San Suu Kyi was being held at a separate ”guesthouse” which was constructed at Insein several years ago especially to detain her.
Debbie Stothard from pressure group Altsean-Burma said she and other activists were shocked to hear that the opposition leader, who has already endured two long stretches under house arrest, had finally been jailed.
”To put her in jail, even though it is not a conventional jail cell, would be designed to increase the anxiety and panic among the pro-democracy movement and also in the international community,” she said.
Stothard said the junta had orchestrated the latest crisis in order to deflect the international community away from its efforts to push for democratic reforms in Myanmar, instead forcing it to focus on her release.
”The main goal of the international community will now be securing Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, rather than political and economic reforms,” she said. ”We’re back at square one.”
”At this stage she is a very valuable hostage to the regime and they are upping the ante to increase the potential ransom.”
Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Win Aung, who was put under intense pressure over the situation at a meeting of Southeast Asian ministers in Cambodia this week, could give no timeline for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release.
But observers in Yangon said that widespread expectations she would be freed in the next few weeks had now been cast into doubt.
The United States has hardened sanctions against Myanmar in the wake of the arrest, while the European Union widened a visa ban to include the extended families of junta and military figures.
The sanctions were originally put in place after 1990 elections which were won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in a result never recognised by the junta. – Sapa-AFP