Report denounces torture committed by the ruling junta on detainees

The Burmese junta is losing ground and committing the worst atrocities. A United Nations report published Tuesday documents torture inflicted on people arrested since the military coup in 2021.

“Mock executions”, “electric shocks”… The United Nations published a report on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, on human rights violations committed by the military junta in Burma against detainees. How did Burma get to this point? As of February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi has been the de facto head of government for less than five years, while Burma seems to be in the midst of a democratic transition. But the military, who are keeping a close eye on things, cannot digest their camp’s defeat in the last elections. The lady from Rangoon and her relatives are arrested. A state of emergency is declared.

Demonstrations break out, but they are bloodily repressed. Gradually, armed rebel groups will form, with a strong ethnic dimension. There are said to be 135 different ethnic groups in Burma. The game of alliances on the ground is complex. Since the fall of 2023, the groups have been gaining ground and the junta would only control 40% of the territory.

Cornered soldiers are committing the worst atrocities, according to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Already this summer, experts had explained how the military terrorized the population by exposing the mutilated bodies of enemy combatants or committing gang rapes. This time, the report describes torture inflicted on the more than 27,000 people arrested since the coup.

“The detainees we were able to interview told us that they were suspended by their hands from the ceiling. That they were forced to crawl on sharp objects. They spoke of snakes or insects brought into their cells to terrorize them, of beatings with iron bars, bamboo, electric cables and motorcycle chains. Of mock executions. Of electric shocks. Of burns inflicted with tasers or boiling water.“, reports James Rodehaver, who heads the Burma department at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

All this is just a sample of what the junta is capable of doing. The High Commission speaks of a total absence of any rule of law in Burma. Justice is being instrumentalized. Any form of opposition is being criminalized. Human rights, already violated on all sides, are in constant regression.

The regime has of course not allowed the UN to come and investigate on site. It already hardly allows humanitarians to come to the aid of the population. But Burma has just experienced the worst floods in its recent history after the passage of Typhoon Yagi. The death toll is estimated at at least 226. This forces the junta to officially request help from the international community.