Human Rights Watch slams Myanmar junta

The New York-based Human Rights Watch Thursday slammed Myanmar’s junta for detaining a score of anti-inflation protesters in Yangon, claiming the arrests violate “fundamental rights of assembly.”

Myanmar authorities arrested about 24 people on Tuesday and Wednesday and dispatched pro-government thugs to harass spontaneous demonstrations held in Yangon since Sunday against spiraling inflation in the former capital.

The government doubled benzine and diesel prices at state petrol stations on August 15 and hiked the price of compressed natural gas (cng), used by public buses, by up to 500 per cent.

On Tuesday night, authorities arrested 14 leaders of the 88 Generation Students dissident group, five student leaders and three members of the pro-democracy Myanmar Development Committee on charges of stirring up civil arrest by planning protests against fuel-roice hikes.

“These arrests violate fundamental rights of assembly, association and expression, and are arbitrary and unlawful under international law,” said Human Rights Watch, in a statement made available in Bangkok.

“The recent price hikes in Burma make it harder for ordinary people to sustain themselves by driving up prices of essential goods and services. Peaceful protest should not land them in jail.” Said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.

The 88 Generation Students are one of the few dissident groups remaining in Myanmar, which has been under the equivalent of martial law since a brutal army crackdown on mass anti-military demonstrations in September 1988.

The group comprises former student leaders who participated in the 1988 demonstrations and are now committed to non-violent means of undermining military rule and ushering in democracy.

Myanmar has been suffering double-digit inflation since last year. The recent fuel price hikes have more than doubled transportation costs.

The nationwide anti-military demonstrations of 1988 were sparked by growing discontent with the country’s deteriorating economy, combined with mounting frustration with the country’s military dictatorship.

In 1987 Myanmar, once Asia’s leading rice exporter, was downgraded to a Least Developed Developing Country (LDDC) status at the United Nations as a means of lessening its international debt burden.

The impoverished status led to widespread disillusionment with the so-called “Burmese Way to Socialism” advocated by the military since it seized power with a coup in 1962.