BURMA/MYANMAR: Police, soldiers still getting away with murder
Despite the political and social changes in Burma (Myanmar) of the last two years, police and soldiers continue to enjoy
impunity for the murder and torture of civilians. Despite the constant efforts of the families of victims to obtain
justice, the military and police institutions are resistant to efforts to have perpetrators in their ranks held to
account for their crimes.
Among the cases that the Asian Human Rights Commission has in recent times issued appeals on are those of Myo Myint Swe,
tortured to death by the police during 2011; U Than Htun, also tortured to death by the police, during 2013; and Zaw Min
Oo, whom three soldiers murdered on a riverside in the same year. In none of these cases have the exhaustive efforts by
family members and their supporters resulted in any form of satisfactory action against the perpetrators. Rather, in
each case we observe a pattern that involved agencies have taken some kind modest administrative measures against the
accused, saying that they are for some reason unrelated to the actual offence, and leaving matters at that.
The AHRC in 2011 issued an appeal on the case of Myo Myint Swe, whom policemen in Rangoon, or Yangon, during the same
year brutally tortured to death over his alleged part in a murder case. Despite the overwhelming evidence of torture,
including eyewitnesses and photographic evidence, a doctor recorded his death as being due to natural causes. Observing
the records of the extent of injuries to the body, a judge concluded her post mortem inquiry in 2012 that it was
difficult to believe that the young man died naturally (AHRC-STM-251-2012). Despite this finding, no further
investigation has been conducted against the police, and lawyers are pessimistic that they can take the case forward.
Myo Myint Swe’s family has worked tirelessly to pressure the concerned authorities into action but to date their dozens
of letters and meetings—including with the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar—have been to no avail.
In 2013 police in Pyi, or Pyay, central Burma, tortured U Than Htun to death in another criminal case
(AHRC-UAC-098-2013). Than Htun was among a group of farmers struggling to reobtain illegally confiscated farmlands, and
he had already been prosecuted for trespass onto the land, among other matters. Like in Myo Myint Swe’s case, extensive
evidence exists to show that the police tortured him to death: including eyewitness accounts, photographs and other
material evidence. Unlike in the former case, the doctor also resisted pressure from the police to collude with them,
the ordinary practice in Burma, and recorded the death as unnatural. Despite the finding, both the township and district
level courts declined to pursue the matter, finding that the injuries were not likely to have been caused by someone
else. On 7 October 2013 the Bago Region High Court on appeal from the family overturned the findings of the lower courts
that nobody could be held responsible for the death, but did not give a specific order on what action should be taken
next. Because the court gave no order on further action, since that time
Three low-ranked soldiers attacked Zaw Min Oo and his companion on a riverbank in Pyi during 2013 nearby the Nawaday
Bridge over the Irrawaddy River (AHRC-UAC-122-2013). Zaw Min Oo died in the attack while his companion survived by
feigning death. She ran to call for help and in a short time local search parties had located the men, whom they took to
the police. The police initiated criminal proceedings but the commander of the battalion where the men were stationed
came and took them from police custody. Although investigating police, including from the specialised Criminal
Investigation Department, told the family and other persons involved that they have enough evidence to prosecute and are
sure that the three soldiers are the perpetrators of the crime, the army has refused to hand them over. Instead the
battalion conducted a court martial that absolved the men of any responsibility in the crime. The court martial was
closed off from the family or other persons concerned with their interests, and according to them all the authorities
have refused to deal with them or keep them informed of what has happened to the alleged murderers. Even the men’s
whereabouts are uncertain, with some reports suggesting they are still being at their battalion camp, others that they
have been transferred elsewhere.
Each of these cases speaks to the incredible efforts that relatives of persons murdered by the police or military must
go even to have their voices heard in Burma today, as in the past, let alone to have any effective action taken. The
power of the police and military is manifest by the fact that in the case of Than Htun, even the accurately recorded
death certificate was insufficient to get the lower courts to move on the case, and it was only in the high court that
the possibility of some kind of action against the accused was reopened. In the Nawaday Bridge case, widespread public
anger and the involvement of many people in the search for and arrest of the three police were insufficient to get them
brought before a civilian court.
The obvious problem here is that the primary, or rather exclusive concern of those involved in the maintenance and
management of police and military forces in Burma continues to be with the reputation and integrity of their
institutions. All responses to such events, and public actions and criticisms, are designed to devolve the institutions
from any type of responsibility or blame. With this purpose in mind, minor disciplinary action is taken against accused
officers, to signal to others that the institution of which they are members suffers inconveniences as a result of
wayward behaviour—at least, wayward behaviour resulting in death that attracts public attention and condemnation. In the
case of Than Htun, the police station chief was demoted shortly afterwards, not, supposedly, for the case of torture but
for dereliction of duty. In the Nawaday case, the three soldiers also received punishment for breaches of discipline,
independent from the question of their role in the murder and attempted murder of civilians. And as the purpose of such
action is also to offset the possibility of any further formal inquiries or criminal actions, it is not only meaningless
but also counterproductive for the families and friends of victims like those in these three cases.
The larger concern for people in Burma at a time of political change and progress on some fronts is that if those
changes do not penetrate institutional behaviour and impunity for grave crimes by military and police personnel is not
brought to an end, then Burma’s democratisation will prove to be ephemeral. If greater political openness and
participation do not correspond with institutional changes for the defence of human rights and prosecution of police and
soldiers responsible for crimes like these then people in Burma will rightly be sceptical about the real meaning of the
much-vaunted change for their daily lives.
Of course, large-scale institutional change after protracted military dictatorship is nowhere an easy task, and in Burma
it will likely be more difficult than many other places. But it should at least be possible, and is in fact essential,
that in cases such as those of Myo Myint Swe, U Than Tun and Zaw Min Oo where the facts of the crimes are manifest and
the evidence for prosecution available, that if impunity is to be ended the accused be prosecuted and punished for their
crimes; the families, compensated and offered other support in accordance with international standards. Impunity needs
to be tackled both at the larger institutional level and as well as one case at a time.
Therefore, the Asian Human Rights Commission again calls for the prosecution and penalization of those police and
soldiers responsible for the deaths of these persons, accompanied by other actions, legally and institutionally, to
bring an end to impunity of the police and soldiers in Burma. In particular, the legal barriers to prosecution of these
persons, in the case of the police through the Criminal Procedure Code and in the case of the military through military
regulations and orders, need to be removed so as to enable ready prosecution of accused persons in cases of this sort.
ends