US State Department orders 'credible investigation' of Myanmar military torture

US State Department will launch an official investigation into Myanmar military’s brutal systemic torture of the detained pro-democracy civilians after The Associated Press revealed in a wide-ranging report that since its political took over in Feb. 1 coup, Tatmadaw has tortured captive civilians in a 'methodical' and 'systemic' way. The report unveiled that Myanmar’s Army had been involved in the abduction of thousands of young men and boys, and have used the corpses of the dead as tools of instilling terror among the Burmese citizens. 

US 'disturbed' by torture reports, says Myanmar military must be 'credibly investigated'

“Since February, security forces have killed more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 131 or more tortured to death,” Associated Press said in its sensational report, referencing one monk’s case, whom Tatmadaw made to hop like a frog; while one other detainee, an accountant by profession was tortured with electric probes. Myanmar’s military has deliberately attacked medics during the pandemic for opposing the military regime since it ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi alleging voter fraud for her party’s landslide victory. 

Myanmar’s Junta has been involved in crackdown and suppression against widespread popular protests since the coup. And as reports of torture of illegally arrested detainees came into light earlier yesterday, US State Department issued a statement, saying, “We are outraged and disturbed by ongoing reports of the Burmese military regime’s use of ‘systematic torture’ across the country.” It further added, “Reports of torture in Burma must be credibly investigated and those responsible for such abuses must be held accountable.”

[In this image from video obtained by The Associated Press, soldiers line up arrested protesters in Yangon, Myanmar on March 3, 2021. The US State Department expressed outrage and demanded an investigation on Friday, Oct. 29. Credit: AP]

Associated Press cited photographic evidence, sketches as proof, and letters from prisoners as well testimony from at least three military personnel on condition of anonymity who divulged key details about the highly secretive detention system where more than 9,000 have been held under detention. Associated Press also recognised dozens of interrogation centres and conditions of the prisons and police lockups with the help of satellite imagery and interviews from the sources. It quoted a high-ranking commander saying that he watched as a witness to the death of at least two prisoners from torture.

Detainees subjected to 'hours of agony' inside interrogation centre

A boy randomly arrested by forces with his friend as they rode their bikes home, was subjected to hours of agony inside a town hall transformed by the military into a torture centre, AP revealed. “There was no break – it was constant,” he says. “I was thinking only of my mom," the victim was quoted as saying. The report comes at a time when junta’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, claimed in a speech that he was trying to consolidate a "democratic system in the country."

Myanmar's military has transformed public facilities and venues such as community halls and a royal palace into interrogation centres, where detainees, aged from a 16-year-old girl to monks, are subjected to torture and physical abuse. AP withheld the prisoners’ names or used partial names in narrating chilling accounts of civilians' plight as they spoke unidentified that the Myanmar soldiers inflicted pain, forced the young men to kneel on sharp rocks, shoved a gun in their mouth, and rolled a baton over one of the detainees' shinbones to get information.

A 21-year-old accountant, whose interrogation began at the police station told the agency that he was driven to 9-Mile Interrogation Center in Yangon, where soldiers "dragged him to the ground by the neck and trashed him mercilessly, kicked him in the chest, and hit his back with a PVC pipe until it broke."

“The AP’s investigation sheds important light on the scope and systemic nature of the junta’s criminal torture campaign,” UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said in a statement. “The confession of military personnel who directly witnessed detainees being tortured to death will be important for accountability efforts, as well as the AP’s uncovering of torture and interrogation center locations.”