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Published on October 2, 2007

With protests quashed and many monasteries empty, fears are growing for those who have disappeared into Burma's grim prisons in recent days - rights groups say more than 1,000 people, including monks and students, are missing.

"I hate to think where they might be, but we have gone by a number of monasteries and they are empty. And it is frightening to think why that is," US charge d'affaires in Rangoon, Shari Villarosa told Nation Channel's Suthichai Yoon in a telephone interview yesterday.

 Villarosa said she was hopeful of a meeting today between UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari and Senior General Than Shwe but added that more international help was needed, especially from neighbouring Thailand.

"I think the Thai government should speak out critically about what's happening. I think … they should reconsider business arrangements that they have with the Burmese generals," she said.

Villarosa fell short of calling on Asean to kick Burma out of the regional grouping but asked how Asean could benefit from having Burma as a member.

The UN's Gambari, who has been in Burma since Saturday, has finally got an appointment to meet with Gen Than Shwe in the junta's remote, bunker-like capital, Naypyidaw. Gambari is expected to return to Rangoon tomorrow to catch a flight out of the country.

"I would hope that something is getting through to Than Shwe and the other generals that violence does not address the underlying problem. There are serious grievances," Villarosa said.

Security forces have launched overnight raids to pick up more monks, civilians and members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, herself under house arrest for most of the past 18 years.

"We have received information about demonstrations in other cities and disturbing reports - from a monk, an NLD member - of arrests taking place, particularly in Manda-lay," Villarosa said.

"Most of these arrests happen in the middle of the night. And they continue to go into monasteries around 2 o'clock in the morning," she said.

Villarosa said the Burmese government admits that there were 10 deaths. "But we suspect there are far more than that," she said.

The Thailand-based Assis-tance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which has for years kept a close watch on political detainees in Burma's 43 prisons, estimates up to 1,500 people were locked up last week.

"At least 85 protest leaders, over 1,000 monks, and between 300 and 400 students and activists were arrested," said AAPP joint secretary Bo Kyi, adding that the detainees were subjected to harsh prison conditions.

The Buddhist monks, who were at the forefront of what has been dubbed the "saffron revolution", were forcibly disrobed and "severely beaten, kicked and insulted" by soldiers and militias, the group said in a statement.

Hong Kong-based organisation the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said "at least 700 monks and 500 civilians are estimated to have been captured and taken to unknown locations in the last week".

These detainees, as well as 150 people arrested after the protests began in August, "must all be treated as disappeared, not arrested, until their whereabouts and conditions are confirmed", the group said.

Diplomats in Rangoon are also trying to assess the true extent of last week's carnage and the extent of the ongoing arrests. Many observers believe the death toll may be far higher than 13 known killings.

Observers say many detainees have been taken to the city's notorious Insein prison, the Government Technological Institute, the police Battalion Number Seven compound, Kyaikkasan race track, and possibly other locations.

"There are enough old and now unoccupied government buildings since the move to [the new capital] Naypyidaw," said one foreign observer, referring to the junta's sudden shift to a new capital 350km north of Rangoon in late 2005.

Human Rights Watch monitor for Burma David Mathieson said the group was still trying to find out "who was taken on what day and to where" but added "it appears that this has been more well planned than last week's events suggested".

"People were taken away during the demonstrations, people were arrested at night, including in the monasteries, and people were arrested at the weekend at smaller demonstrations and as security forces cleared up the streets," he said.

Mathieson said "the onus of figuring where those people are and what condition they are in is on the shoulders of [UN special envoy] Ibrahim Gambari," who is due to meet junta leader Gen Than Shwe this morning.

"He must come out of the country with some account of where those people are and what condition they are in," the HRW monitor said. He added that, even at the best of times, Burma's prisons were sinister and overcrowded places where "the conditions are horrendous, and torture and ill treatment are commonplace".

 The Nation,

 Agencies