Chapter 8. Democracy Imprisoned

‘Disciplined democracy’ has a peculiar ring to it. As if imprisonment through the web of Myanmar national culture and the framework of the law alone were not enough, the regime has made determined attempts to arrest and imprison all who get in its way. By 19 November 1998, shortly after the regime cracked down on the NLD after its call to hold a Parliament, 182 NLD MPs and 600 other Party members were in detention, ‘staying at government guest houses’.[1] They were released on condition that they resign their party activities.

Tin U was in prison when the election results came out. He realised, when the prison was filling up with new prisoners, that the regime was not pleased with the results. He characterised his realisation by saying that at that point in time ‘the prison became Parliament’, for all prominent leaders had been imprisoned.[2] From yet another point of view, a BBC journalist wryly commented that Aung San Suu Kyi, together with Nelson Mandela and Terry Waite, provided the BBC with a ‘captive audience’.[3] Unable to receive independent news coverage they relied heavily on the BBC for objective news coverage, they were both captive and captured, for they were confined between four walls.

Aung San Suu Kyi in ‘Locked doors cannot stifle the call for liberty: Czechs and Us’ compares the Czech imprisonment experience under the communist regime with that of prisoners in Burma. She argues that in choosing a symbol for the party, forced upon the NLD by the regime, ‘it would be very appropriate if the symbol for the National League for Democracy (NLD) were a locked prison door’. Such a choice, she says, would mean that ‘everybody would know that such a symbol could only represent the NLD’ and so they would not mistakenly vote for another party.[4] She points out that, unlike the now liberated Czechs who were permitted to write, albeit censored, letters from prison, the military regime of Burma excels in its prison mentality and ‘could make a reasonable bid for grade A’. Vaclav Havel ‘could write letters to his wife from prison!’ whilst ‘political prisoners in Burma are not allowed reading or writing material of any kind’. The only way Burmese prisoners can communicate with their families if they are not allowed visiting rights, is by ‘smuggling out clandestine messages which often cost them a considerable sum in the way of bribes’.

There is no doubt that the incessant harassment of Aung San Suu Kyi and her many colleagues, their relatives and friends, in terms of arrest, trial and imprisonment, and the invasive nature of this experience, has moved senior NLD leaders. As one observer commented, ‘MPs have had to choose one of two ways; either to go to prison or to sign testimonies and documents which state that they do not support the NLD's activities and the Committee Representing People's Parliament’, thus defeating the point of their own election.[5]

It has been reported that Aung San Suu Kyi was motivated to organize a committee to collect funds for political prisoners. One thousand Kyat, including one towel and necessary medicine, was collected per prisoner. She also organized money collections for poor family members of those who died in prison, amounting to five thousand Kyat per family. Though at first permitted, by August 1995 these funds were reported to have been confiscated.[6]

Her concern for the prisoners was expressed by one of the soldiers guarding her who was interviewed by Victor.

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p187/392

She has repeatedly published on the plight of political prisoners, including her reflection on a poem sent to her by a female prisoner on the conditions of prison for women and the difficulties faced by their relatives. In this way ‘one-third [5 out of 15] of the women members of parliament were deprived of their positions and their liberty’.[8] These women, ‘confined by the walls of prison and bound in uncongenial companionships must have longed for the wings of a dove that they might fly to gentle lands ruled by compassion’.

In ‘Young birds outside cages’ she expresses her concern for the devastating effect imprisonment has on relatives, especially the young people who are left outside when parents are ‘imprisoned for their beliefs’. Detention without trial can last three years disrupting and damaging parent-child relationships before any evidence of guilt has even been entertained. When Aung San Suu Kyi met her youngest son after being separated for two years and seven months ‘he had changed from a round faced not-quite twelve-year-old into a rather stylish ‘cool’ teenager. If I had met him in the street I would not have known him for my little son.’ The children, however, are traumatised even when their parents are released, for they continue to fear their parents being taken away.

Imprisonment in Burma

In the days of Burmese royalty, those detained for crimes were rarely dealt with lightly. However, long-term prison sentences were never imposed. Indeed, the institution of prison was not even conceptualised. Men would be locked up for an indefinite period, but only awaiting interrogation and court decision.[10] Furthermore, there was a long tradition that kings, when they opened up the Throne Room at the beginning of their reign, would release those detained, including those involved in conspiracies along with caged birds, chained bears and confined carnivores. Annually, before the rainy season, captured animals and human beings would be released.[11] Amnesties were common and frequent.

In many respects, therefore, the long arbitrary sentences handed out to Burmese political party members, and the swelling of the prison population over the last decade with many sentences exceeding a decade, is very un-Burmese. It does not form part of the traditional Burmese value system. It is not a local custom. And it is not within the bounds of the local law however it is interpreted.

The unfortunate fact is that many in Burma have experienced imprisonment, and many have mentally and physically succumbed. There are today many well-researched reports that detail the miserable conditions under which these people come to trial and how they are kept in prison.[12] After the NLD called for the convention of parliament in August 1988, imprisonment was greatly extended and the regime rounded up virtually all NLD representatives. The regime described it thus: ‘we didn't arrest any members of Parliament and members of the NLD. We just invited them to discuss the situation of Burma. We are

I could not possibly begin to convey all the details of prison life, and some paragraphs lifted from reports that sum up prison conditions should suffice to illustrate my point here that prison conditions are more than stressful, and are often life-threatening. The Amnesty International Report 1997: Myanmar makes much mention of imprisonment, and below are just two paragraphs that convey the overall conditions:

Also, the United Nations Rapporteur reported in 1996 on the overall conditions under which prisoners are held as follows:

The UN Rapporteur calls for the regime's public and military officials to end their ‘culture of impunity’ by instituting disciplinary proceedings against the violation of human rights. Prisoners are denied writing materials, leading in some cases to solitary confinement simply for possessing a piece of paper. Convicts are often ‘taken from prison to serve as porters, often shortly before their sentences are to expire, and then forced to work under very poor conditions long after they should have been released from prison. In Ywangan labour camp, Hanmyinmo Road, Sagaing Division, it is reported that ‘400 prisoners … died within a month.’[15]

Insein Prison

Of its thirty-six prisons, Insein Prison, Rangoon, is Burma's largest prison housing between 9–10,000 inmates, including 400–500 political prisoners among which about 200 are monks. Despite a recent policy to place political prisoners as far away from their families as possible, so as to inflict maximum punishment and inconvenience, the majority of political prisoners were and still are held in Insein Prison.

In Cries from Insein,[16] Win Naing Oo provides a personal account of his imprisonment and an overview of the conditions in Insein Prison. In May, while organising political activities for the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, he was arrested after which he spent a total of three years in prison, including two years in Insein and one year in Thayet Prison. He sketches for us the structure of Insein Prison, the arrival process, the lack of legal representation, the routine torture on arrival, the punishment, the way hardened criminals are used to inflict damage on political prisoners, the lack of elementary medical care and corruption of prison authorities. Also of particular concern are rape and the spread of HIV, through lack of medical care, with reportedly one injection needle per day for 250 patients.

Pleading not guilty in Insein[17] is the English translation of a report of the trial of twenty-two prisoners

by the trial judge. Not intended for publication, this report gives an insight into the way political prisoners are dealt with in their repeated trials. Without legal representation, all were uniformly given an additional seven-year prison sentence with hard labour for attempting to pass information about prison conditions to a UN representative in March 1996, and for hiding radio sets and circulating a newsletter in prison. Sentencing does not reflect the crime.

Numerous other reports and comments are available, suggesting that the prison experience is central in the lives of members and sympathisers of the NLD, and central to the regime's political opposition in general. Even ordinary citizens without direct involvement in politics are at risk of various forms of unpredictable punishments, or requisitions of labour or porterage ‘for the good of the country’.[18]

From these reports it is clear that the prison experience, quite apart from depriving a person of freedom, has been designed to inflict maximum physical and psychological damage. It is more than a punishment, for it is used by the State to reaffirm its own narrow and bizarre vision of normality. The prison has now also become a ‘work house’, an excuse for harnessing free labour for the sake of enrichment of the elite. For example, the Burmese press reports that on 22 July 1997 at a meeting of the Prisons Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Lieutenant General Mya Thin, the Minister for Home Affairs, recommended the use of prison labour to develop the country as ‘… the persons serving sentences at prisons constitute a considerable labour force. They too are members of the public but their performance gets wasted in the prisons’. He spoke of ‘the need to make use of their working abilities in nation-building work. He said the Prisons Department is involved in agriculture and livestock breeding and quarry as well as regional development projects.’[19]

The fact is that even ‘members of the public’ have their labour requisitioned. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been working on roads, dams, railway lines and other state-sponsored infrastructure projects under the rubric of ‘voluntary labour’. The tragedy was summed up by Christina Fink.

Courage in prison

In spite of the imprisonment conditions, many claim to have been strengthened by the prison experience and to have found dignity in their suffering.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent six years under house arrest[21] between 1989–95, has often made the comment that ‘we are prisoners in our own country’. By this she refers to the serious lack of freedom of the Burmese people as a whole. She first used this in reference to Martyrs' Day on 19 July 1989, when the military declared a curfew and used force to keep people in their houses, making quite clear that it would use its battalions to shoot those who joined the march. In the event, she was forced to cancel the march to her father's Mausoleum in order to prevent bloodshed. At around that time many of the NLD Executive were being arrested. At this point she said, ‘let the world know that under this military administration we are prisoners in our own country’.[22]

Ironically, it was the following day, 20 July 1989, that she was herself placed under house arrest. She

went on hunger strike, demanding to be transferred to Insein jail to be kept under the same conditions as other prisoners. The regime did not dare imprison her. She ceased her demands only upon being assured that the prisoners would not be subjected to ‘inhuman interrogation’ and that ‘due process of law’ would be exercised.[23]

About her period of arrest she says ‘… I always felt free because they have not been able to do anything to what really matters – to my mind, my principle, what I believe in. They were not able to touch that. So I am free.’[25] She proclaims inspiration from the Indian nationalist Rabindranath Tagore's poem ‘Walk Alone’ [ZJ8]. She says she is not bitter about her own experience but has expressed worry about the general conditions of repression throughout the country. As she says, ‘most of our people who have lived under far worse conditions than I, in Insein jail and other jails, have no ill feelings … I was under house arrest … All right, this is not the most beautiful house in the world but it is a lot [more] comfortable than Insein jail or any other jail in the country.’[26] As for the fears for her own safety, she says ‘the official papers are always talking about “annihilating” our forces (she laughs again)’ but ‘we don't think about that too much’ [ZJ7].

Her struggle is to accomplish ‘a sense of security that as long as we're not doing harm to others, as long as we are not infringing the laws … we should be able to rest secure in the knowledge that we ourselves will not be harmed’ and that ‘the authorities cannot remove you from your job, kick you out of your house, throw you in prison, or have you executed, if you have done nothing to warrant such actions’ [Y23].

In their attempts to gradually arrest all those she relies upon, in August 1997 three members of her family were sentenced to ten years imprisonment, so that in total four members of her family are in prison.[27]

Apart from her house arrest, however, there were also several episodes known as her ‘car arrest’, in which Aung San Suu Kyi was confined in her car because her road was blocked by the military to prevent her from visiting NLD township officers.

The regime explains confinement of Aung San Suu Kyi in terms of its concern for ‘her own safety’. It proclaims that her life is in danger because of her unpopularity caused by her call for boycott of investment and tourism and her support for sanctions.

U Kyi Maung

U Kyi Maung, who spent eleven years in prison,[28] has said ‘I don't base decision on whether I would be rearrested. I couldn't care less … However, I always consider myself a free man.’[29] Imprisoned for the first time at the end of May 1965, he said that ‘on the third day of my incarceration I overcame the feeling of loss in a flash, and quite unexpectedly at that’. He says that ‘ever since, I believe I have been able to manage my life, to live with a degree of success on a path free from excessive anger and frustration’. [30] He is no longer worried about going to prison, for he says ‘I am as free in prison as I am in my own home’,[31] and ‘you don't seem to understand that imprisonment is not a concern of mine’.[32] In reply to the question whether he and his colleagues have the stamina to continue going to prison he replies ‘you can ask Abel [Brigadier General David Oliver Abel, minister for National Planning and Economic Development] whether he could stand the stress? How long can he survive under the strain and the peace pressure? [giggling]’ [ZJ5].

Tin U

NLD Tin U, who spent ten years in prison,[33] says that he ‘never felt the slightest bit bored throughout

the time I languished in prison.’ He adds, ‘it comes and goes. And without attachment to it there's no problem. It's just a thought. That's all.’[34] About the prospect of going to prison again, he says ‘Why should I be concerned with things that are out of my control? I'm fully prepared to be taken away day or night.’ Also, his view is that ‘the momentum for democratic change’ is there, so that going to prison ‘would do nothing to stop it, in fact, if would only serve the cause’,[35] for ‘incarceration didn't impede our struggle, it enhanced it.’[36]

NLD Tin U sums up the general state of the country when he says that ‘we are prisoners within a prison’, for imprisonment is a double concept that extends beyond the confines of the prison-cell itself. Like Aung San Suu Kyi, he views the experience of imprisonment as encompassing the country as a whole and as inescapable for the Burmese people over this last decade. I will return to Tin U later, for his experiences exemplify the hopes of many Burmese, namely the transformation of a repressive Burmese General into a civilian supporting the democratic cause.

The main point, however, is that the experience of imprisonment may be used to sum up the absence of legal space in Burma for any form of political activity independent from the army. The NLD as the elected party is the largest form of organised opposition, and has become the regime's most important target for repression. As Tin U put it in his recent address to the International Bar Association members, supporters and sympathisers of the NLD are kept under close surveillance ‘as though they were habitual offenders’ and

Intimidation, harassment, oppression, violation of basic rights and perpetual persecution are daily fare for us. Legitimate, democratic activities are deemed to be against the law. Political prisoners are detained for indefinite periods before charges are brought against them and they are not given the dignity of a proper trial. They are kept in unhygienic, crowded cells. Without adequate water or food and medical care is almost non-existent. Due to lack of required treatment, the spread of HIV in the prisons is alarming. There have already been a number of deaths and all prisoners can be said to be endangered to some degree. Worst of all, political prisoners are at times beaten and tortured cruelly and made to languish in solitary confinement at the whims and fancies of jailers, who usually operate in accordance with the instructions of the military authorities.

‘Spiritual strength’ from within prison

The senior NLD leadership, in spite of its predicament, sees positive developments in this extended period of political crisis. Indeed, as Aung San Suu Kyi said, ‘I think a lot of us within the organization have been given the opportunity to develop spiritual strength because we have been forced to spend long years by ourselves under detention and in prison. In a way, we owe it to those people who put us there’ [S5]. She also says:

Political prisoners have known the most sublime moments of perfect communion with their highest ideals during periods when they were incarcerated in isolation, cut off from contact with all that was familiar and dear to them. From where do those resources spring, if not from an innate strength at our core, a spiritual strength that transcends material bounds? My colleagues who spent years in harsh conditions of Burmese prisons, and I myself, have had to draw on such inner resources on many occasions. [ZJ6]

She then proceeds to say that ‘we may not be able to control the external factors that affect our existence but we can decide how we wish to conduct our inner lives.’

However, she was aware of this very early on, even before her house arrest and before the NLD crackdown. During her tour of the Irrawaddy on 4 April 1989, prior to her own house arrest, she said

… feel always free. Keep it always in your mind. Nobody can detain someone else's mind though they can detain the physical body. Therefore, if you were master of your mind nobody can abuse you. We need to remember this very very much.

...tNrJvGwfvyfaeygw,f/ 'gudk pdwfxJrSmxm;yg/ vlY&Jhpdwfudk b,folrS rzrf;xm;edkifbl;/ udk,fh&Jh udk,fudkom zrf;xm;edkifw,f/ udk,fhpdwfudk edkifw,fqdk&if b,folrS tedkifr,ledkifbl;/ 'gudkusrwdkY rsm;rsm;BuD; rSwfxm;zdkY vdkw,f/[37]

It may well be asked what this ‘spiritual strength’ and this concept of ‘master of your mind’ is based on? What is the meaning of prisoners conducting their ‘inner lives’?

It is common in prisons all over the world to find substance abuse to help the mind cope with the boredom and suffering in prison. However, Burmese use of mental culture is a home-grown solution to a problem based entirely on techniques to focus and develop the mind.[38] The ‘spiritual strength’ these leaders have shown in the face of their confinement has been much misunderstood. It unambiguously refers to a

change in perception as the result of the Buddhist practice of ‘mental culture’. Aung San Suu Kyi has often described the conditions of her entire country in terms of the discourse of imprisonment (‘Let the world know that we are prisoners in our own country’) and she has characterised the struggle by her colleagues and herself as ‘the second independence struggle’. She has also suggested, however, that the state of imprisonment has naturally led to the adoption of mental culture (‘meditation’) as an instrument for liberation:

Buddha's disciple Ananda said, ‘by virtue of cultivating and developing fourfold mindfulness, I know the thousandfold world’.[39] The main technique of mental culture that helped her cope with her house arrest is vipassana. She said that ‘Like many of my Buddhist colleagues, I decided to put my time under detention to good use by practising meditation. It was not an easy process.’ Without a teacher she found her early attempts ‘more than a little frustrating’, and sometimes failed to discipline her mind ‘in accordance with prescribed meditation practices’. She followed, however, her teacher's advice accepting that ‘whether or not one wanted to practise meditation, one should do so for one's own good’ [C10].

Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi says that ‘I am very grateful to the Slorc that I was allowed this period in which to practise my meditation’ [C5], ‘house-arrest has given me the opportunity to try to overcome my own weaknesses and faults, especially through meditation’ [R13], and ‘I think a lot of us within the organization have been given the opportunity to develop spiritual strength because we have been forced to spend long years by ourselves under detention and in prison. In a way, we owe it to those people who put us there’ [S5]. This strength is an ‘inner strength’, ‘the spiritual steadiness that comes from the belief that what you are doing is right, even if it doesn’t bring you immediate concrete benefits. It’s the fact that you are doing something that helps to shore up your spiritual powers. It’s very powerful’ [S6].

Apart from vipassana, an important technique for overall coping with the social dimensions thrown up by house arrest, she points at samatha, in particular byama-so tayà (metta and karuna). While under house arrest, she attempted to address ‘the wrongs’ of people with metta [E24]. She furthermore suggests that, while fear reigns on the outside of prison, ‘It's only metta that is strong enough to keep together people who face such repression and who are in danger of being dragged away to prison at any moment’ [E11], and ‘many people are afraid to visit families of political prisoners in case they too are called in by the authorities and harassed. Now, you could show active compassion [karuna] by coming to the families or political prisoners and offering them practical help and by surrounding them with love [metta], compassion [karuna] and moral support’ [D6]. She sometimes cried for the imprisoned students, and it is this byama-so tayà practice that allowed her to feel she provided assistance when ‘she sent them blessings through her meditations’.[40] As we shall see later, her concept of democracy is also subsumed by these practices.

Furthermore, vipassana also greatly helped her colleagues cope in the much more cruel environment of the prison. For example, when U Kyi Maung declared that during his prison sentence he continued ‘to struggle from within’ [C30] while in solitary confinement he means that he coped by practising the anapana vipassana technique.

Aung San Suu Kyi's personal advisor, U Win Htein, also managed to get through his prison term by practising mental culture [C8–C9]. He lived in solitary confinement witnessing how his prison inmates ‘were broken’ and ‘suffered severe mental disorders’. Their experiences in prison resulted in suicide attempts, paranoia, and he had to live in absolute silence so as not to provoke these disturbed fellow inmates. Yet Win Htein says, ‘I could withstand solitary confinement due to reason, plus meditation’ and that ‘I always tried to occupy my mind with something sometimes reciting the sutras, sometimes meditating, sometimes keeping my consciousness on whatever I was doing.’ His main fear was that if his mind was not occupied, he would be overcome by ‘angry feelings about the fate I was suffering, the injustice’. In short, he says that he ‘was basically successful in curbing my bad feelings with my meditations’ which he learnt after visiting a Buddhist monastery in 1982. It was his meditation that helped him ‘greatly in dealing with the

Monywa Tin Shwe, a lawyer at the High Court and founder member of the NLD, died in Insein prison on 8 June 1997. He had been arrested in 1990 and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment under Section 5 of the Emergency Provisions Act. He was found on the morning of 8 June 1997, ‘collapsed in his cell while he was meditating’, and died on the way to the in-jail hospital.[41]

When Tin U speaks of his impending arrest on 20 July 1989 on the charge of ‘endangering the security of the state’, he says that he prepared himself through meditation [C11]. Commenting on his psychology while confined in jail, he felt that mental culture provided him with the strength to carry on. He says that he adjusted to prison and joined those who used ‘the isolation and cruel living standards to their favour’ because he ‘had ways to keep my spirit alive’. Although his hut within the prison compound was completely encircled with barbed wire and he spent all his time indoors, ‘the wire was a constant reminder of how precious freedom was’ and it gave him joy to find that, ‘like in the Buddha's teachings, obstacles can be seen as advantages; the loss of one's freedom can inspire reflection on the preciousness of freedom.’ He knew from his time as a practising monk the benefits of sati – mindfulness meditation because ‘everything you see, hear, taste, think, and smell becomes simply an experience, without anything extra placed upon it. Just phenomena.’ This is how ‘in that way too, the thought of imprisonment, is seen as just a thought. It comes and goes. And without attachment to it there's no problem. It's just a thought. That's all’ [C12].

Emphasising mindfulness (sati) as ‘the key to sanity’, Tin U says that if you do everything with mindfulness ‘there is no room in one's mind for negative thoughts’ and this way he could keep his ‘mind free of unobstructive emotions that might otherwise upset me’ [C13]. The best way in solitary confinement is to ‘overcome any inner hindrance’, which means ‘to train yourself in sati – mindfulness or awareness – it's shining light on one's darkness’ [R4].

This emphasis on mental culture is repeated among some of the students, such as Zaw Zaw. He had also been imprisoned and tried to meditate and calm down, but had difficulties concentrating.[42] Victor also cites ‘William’, who spent six years in solitary confinement in Insein prison without trial for supporting students financially, where he says:

Finally, as Aung San Suu Kyi points out, it is the mothers, the fathers, the wives, the husbands, and the children who are having to cope with the threat posed to the lives of their loved ones. In good Burmese tradition, for them too, asceticism and meditation are one of very few instruments available to transcend their misery. Thus, Aung San Suu Kyi points out she knows a mother

[1] David Brunnsrom. ‘Interview (with Aung San Suu Kyi): Suu Kyi hits out at military gag attempt’. Reuters, 30.11.1998.

[2] Tin U cited in ASSK (1997b:219).

[3] Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi by Steve Weiman. ‘Patience pragmatism pays off for “The Lady”’. The Nation, 01.11.1995.

[4] ‘Letter from Burma.’ Mainichi Daily News, 11.05.1998.

[5] Moe Aye. ‘Hostages and scapegoats: how long? The Nation, 04.11.1998.

[6] ‘Aung San Suu Kyi's contribution to political prisoners confiscated’. ABSDF Voice of the Peacock, News & Views, Vol. 2, No. 4, Aug–Sep 1995.

[7] Victor (1998:106).

[8] e.g. ‘The “Fighting Peacock Maidens” of freedom. Letter from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi.’ The Nation, 08.05.1997.

[9] ASSK (1997:23–25).

[10] e.g. ROB 3 Jun 1784, 10 Jul 1784; Than Tun (1983–90,X:88).

[11] e.g. ROB 21 Aug; Than Tun (1983–90,X:87).

[12] For substantive reports by reputed international organization see in particular: Amnesty International Myanmar: conditions in Prisons and Labour Camps ASA 16/22/95, September 1995; Myanmar: Intimidation and Imprisonment September – December 1996. ASA 16/01/97, February 1997; United Nations (Special Rapporteur Judge Rajsoomer Lallah). Report of Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar A/51/466, October 1996 (see in particular E. Prison Conditions pp. 72–82). See also Tortured voices: personal accounts of Burma's interrogation centers (ABSDF, forthcoming). See also Mya Maung (1998a:31–37).

[13] Moe Aye. ‘Hostages and scapegoats: how long? The Nation, 04.11.1998.

[14] Situation of human rights in Myanmar. In Human rights questions: human rights situations and reports of Special Rapporteurs and Representatives. Situation of human rights in Myanmar, 8 October 1996.

[15] Ibid. See also Amnesty International. Myanmar – conditions in prisons and labour camps. September 1995.

[16] ABSDF, 1996.

[17] ABSDF, 1997.

[18] Reports on prison conditions and arrests by journalists and observers of human rights in Burma include: Aung Zaw. ‘1997 HIV scare in Burma's Insein.’ The Nation, 19.10.1997; Mahn Nyunt Maung. ‘Experience of a political prisoner.’ Burma Issues. January 1994; Thet Hmu. ‘Darkness to light’ (Burma Debate, Sept–Oct 1997); Moe Aye. ‘The last days of Mr. Leo Nichols.’ Burma Debate, Vol. V, No. 1, Winter 1998, pp. 18–20; Aphaluck Bhatiasevi. ‘Released prisoners talk of terrible jail.’ Bangkok Post, 14.11.1997.

[19] NLM, 22.07.1997.

[20] ‘Notes on a trip to Rangoon.’ BurmaNet News, 28.06.1995.

[21] Some have characterised her house arrest as a ‘private prison’ (Victor 1998:27).

[22] ASSK (1991:315) citing AI (1989:65).

[23] Kreager in ASSK (1991:316–17).

[24] Stewart (1997:101).

[25] BBC interview, ABC Nightline, 13.07.1995.

[26] The Nation (Bangkok), 02.08.1995.

[27] ‘Military govt. sentences Suu Kyi's relatives to 10-years jail. Times of India (New Delhi), 19.08.1997.

[28] Twice imprisoned for a total of seven years between 1962–88, one month in 1988, and four-and-a-half years between September 1990 and March 1995. ASSK (1997a:173–74), ASSK (1997b:76–77). He was again arrested for five days on 23 October 1996 in the wake of a protest by students of the Yangon Institute of Technology on 20 October.

[29] ASSK (1997a:174).

[30] ASSK (1997a:185).

[31] ASSK (1997a:191).

[32] ASSK (1997a:199).

[33] Sep 1976–80, July 1989–1995 (ASSK 1997b:206), ASSK (1997a:76–77).

[34] ASSK (1997a:218).

[35] ASSK (1997a:208).

[36] ASSK (1997a:209).

[37] Kei Nemoto transcript of Aung San Suu Kyi's video campaign speeches.

[38] An example of substitution of meditation for substance abuse is found in Mambuca, Annette, ed. Free at last – daily meditations by and for inmates: the dramatic promise of recovery from substance abuse. Park Ridge, IL: Parkside Pub., 1994.

[39] S.N., V:299.

[40] Whitney (1997:100–1).

[41] Statement No. 06/97, NLD, 10 June 1997.

[42] Whitney (1997:72).

[43] Victor (1998:92).

[44] ‘The “Fighting Peacock Maidens” of freedom.’ Letter from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nation (Bangkok), 08.05.1997.