The top UN expert on Myanmar’s human rights also called for international pressure on the military. Washington lawmakers urged Congress to take action in the wake AP’s investigation. The investigation was based upon interviews with 28 people including children and women who were released and imprisoned since February when the military took over the government.
“We are outraged by the ongoing reports that the Burmese military regime uses’systematic torture” across the country,” stated the State Department, using Myanmar’s alternative name, Burma. “Reports of torture occurring in Burma should be investigated thoroughly and those responsible must be held accountable.”
The AP report includes photographs, sketches, and letters from prisoners. It also contains testimony from three defected military officers. This is the most complete look into the highly secretive system that has housed more than 9,000 people. Based on interviews and satellite imagery, the AP identified a dozen interrogation centres in Myanmar.
Since February, security forces have killed over 1,200 people, with at least 131 tortured death row detainees.
The AP discovered that the Tatmadaw military has attempted to conceal evidence of torture. A high-ranking commander’s aide told the AP that he witnessed security forces torturing two prisoners to death. He said that soldiers placed glucose drip lines on the corpses of two prisoners to make it appear they were still alive. This forced a military doctor into falsifying their autopsy reports.
U.N. special raporteur Tom Andrews on Myanmar stated that “The AP investigation sheds important light upon the scope and systemic nature junta’s criminal torture campaign.” The confessions of military personnel who witnessed torture will help to establish accountability and the AP’s discovery of torture centers and locations will aid in accountability.
Andrews stated that the accounts in AP’s Report are likely to be just the tip of an iceberg, given the military’s attempts to conceal its abuses.
The top Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul from Texas, asked the House to vote on the BURMA act. Additional targeted sanctions would be authorized against the military by the legislation.
The U.S., United Kingdom, and European Union have placed sanctions on Myanmar’s high-ranking military personnel and state-owned businesses, but they have not yet sanctioned American and French oil- and gas companies operating in Myanmar. This has allowed the military its largest source of foreign currency revenue. The Tatmadaw uses it partly to buy weapons.
McCaul stated in a statement that “the disturbing reporting by Associated Press about the sadistic torture, horrific violence perpetrated by the Burmese military junta is sadly the latest of a long series of their atrocities including genocide towards the Rohingya,” referring to the mass murder and rape committed by the military against thousands of Rohingya Muslims in 2017.
New York’s Rep. Gregory Meeks, the Democratic Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged Congress to adopt the legislation.
“I condemn the Burmese army’s unconscionable treatment detainees, which allegedly includes victims as young as sixteen years old in the strongest possible terms,” Meeks stated in a statement.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the administration is looking at sanctions that could affect Myanmar’s oil-and-gas industry. However, they have not yet made a decision. According to these officials, there is a lot of internal discussion among the National Security Council and the State Department about how to ensure that sanctions are not detrimentally affecting the people of Myanmar.
Human rights groups also called for an immediate international response.
“The AP’s thorough and extensive investigation sheds light on the dark-box of Myanmar’s detention facilities,” said Susannah Sirkin, director of policy at Physicians for Human Rights. Susannah Sirkin (director of policy at Physicians for Human Rights), said that the Tatmadaw’s systematic torture regime and attempts to conceal it from the public eye require immediate global recognition and action. The group concluded that three torture victims’ wounds, as shown in photos sent by the AP, were consistent with deliberate beatings with sticks or rods.
The military didn’t respond to a request to comment on the AP report. It dismissed questions by the AP earlier this week about its findings and called them “nonsense”.
