Myanmar challenges opposition to de

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Subject: Myanmar challenges opposition to detail claimed prison  transfers     

Myanmar challenges opposition to detail claimed prison transfers 
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press






BANGKOK, Thailand (June 7, 1999 1:02 p.m. EDT 

http://www.nandotimes.com) - Myanmar's ruling military challenged the 
opposition Monday to give details on prisoners allegedly moved from 
prison before a rare visit by the International Committee of the Red 
Cross. 

The National League for Democracy has said that the ICRC delegation 
was subjected to a sham during a visit to Insein Prison, where many 
of the country's political prisoners are held. 

"It would be very interesting to know if the NLD is willing to and 
can provide us with names, dates and places where the inmates were 
alleged to have been transferred just before the ICRC's visit to the 
Insein correctional facility," a government spokesman said in a 
statement made on customary condition of anonymity. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and winner of the 1991 Nobel 
Peace Prize, said last week that detainees at the prison in Myanmar's 
capital, Yangon, were transferred to faraway prisons so the 
delegation would not see them. 

Thousands of party members have been imprisoned or detained over the 
past decade since Suu Kyi's party won legislative elections. The 
military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, never allowed parliament to 
meet. 

Suu Kyi's party normally finds it extremely difficult to learn what 
has happened to members who disappear into the closed legal system. 
Often, the party is only able to guess what is happening based on 
information received from family members. 

Former prisoners and human rights groups have called conditions in 
Myanmar's prisons inhumane and intolerable and said torture is 
common. Some political prisoners are kept in tiny cells meant to 
house dogs. 

Suu Kyi said the transfers are a hardship because they put prisoners 
hundreds of miles from their families. The prisoners depend on their 
families for medicine and food packages, she said.