Junta - still receiving military equipment from China, Russia, Ukraine, and India. by risa
From the Guardian.
Amnesty International yesterday said the junta was still receiving military equipment from China, Russia, Ukraine, and India.
The Burmese generals claim to have released all but 500 of the Buddhist monks and other demonstrators detained since last month’s pro-democracy protests. But the senior British diplomat, briefing journalists yesterday on condition of anonymity, gave a “conservative estimate” that 2,000 to 2,500 were still being held and more were being picked up.
“There are substantial night-time raids going on. They have scooped up hundreds of people,” the diplomat said.
British officials and human rights activists believe there are four main detention centres in Rangoon: a racecourse, the city’s institute of technology, the Insein prison, and the Mingladon detention facility.
But the diplomat said detainees were increasingly being dispersed around the country, particularly to centres the regime calls New Life camps - gulags where detainees are used as forced labour.
“We are hearing from people who have been locked up directly … the conditions in which they are being held: in excrement-smeared rooms, hundreds to a room, not fed, interrogated,” he said.
The official death toll of the crackdown is 10, but the diplomat said: “We believe it is very many multiples of that.”
The protesters are being tried in secret, facing a minimum sentence of two years. British officials believe those found guilty of participation in the protests would face more than seven years in jail, and the leaders could be imprisoned for 20 years.
The diplomat said the monks’ treatment had outraged a profoundly religious nation. “The anger is quite extraordinary when you scratch the surface. In fact you barely need to do that,” he said. “We are still seeing incidents of low-level resistance with rocks and bricks being thrown at the police at night.”
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