Letters from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Misrule of Law

As I understand it, a kangaroo court is so called because it is a burlesque performance where the process of the law takes heart-stopping leaps and bounds. Out of curiosity, I looked up the entry on kangaroos in the Encyclopedia Britannica to see how far these marsupial mammals can clear in a leap. Apparently the record is 13.5 meters. This far superior to the Olympics long jump record. It is no surprise then that the erratic course of justice in a kangaroo court is outside the bounds of normal human conduct.

I have written about the challenges that political dissidents in Burma have to face. Everybody committed to taking an active part in the endeavor to return the country to democracy has to be prepared to go to prison at any time. It usually happens in the middle of the night, appropriately, as there can be fewer deeds more akin to darkness than that of depriving innocent people of a normal, healthy life. The ones most vulnerable to arrest are members of the NLD.

Many of them are already seasoned jail veterans who, at casual moments, exchange prison yarns and instruct the as yet uninitiated on such matters as the kind of treatment they can expect at the interrogation sessions and what they should take with them when the banging on the door comes: change of clothing, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, medicines, a blanket or two, et cetera, all in a plastic bag. Nothing so respectable as a knapsack or suitcase is permitted. And do not be fooled if the people who turn up at the door, usually without a warrant, say that they will only be keeping you for a few days. That could well translate into a 20-year sentence.

When U Win Htein, a key member of my office staff, was arrested one night last May, he had a bag already packed. He had previously spent six years in Insein Jail: He was one of the people taken away from my house in 1989 on the day I was detained and he was released only in February 1995. When U Win Htein asked those who had come to take him away whether they had an arrest warrant, they replied that it was not necessary as charges had already been moved against him and his sentence had been decided. So much for the concept of the law that deems a person innocent until proven guilty.

Section 340 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that "any person accused of an offense before a criminal court, or against who proceedings are instituted under this code, in any such court, may of right be defended by a pleader." This basic right to counsel is systematically denied to political prisoners in Burma. They are not even allowed to make contact with their families.

The authorities generally refuse to give any information on detainees who have not yet been tried. The NLD and the families of political prisoners have to make strenuous inquiries to find out where they are, with what "crime" they would be charged and when and where the trials would take place. Usually the trials of political prisoners are conducted in a special courthouse within the jail precincts.

Last month, a number of political prisoners were tried in Insein Jail. When the NLD heard that U Win Htein and some others were going to be produced at court on a certain day, a lawyer was sent to defend them. The Special Branch officer at the jail questioned by the lawyer said he did not know anything about a trial. But the trial took place while the lawyer was waiting at the gate and continued after he left in the afternoon. The next week, a number of lawyers again went to Insein Jail, accompanied by the families of the prisoners, on the day they had heard the trial was to continue. This time they managed to get into the prison courthouse. However, they were only allowed to cross-examine four of the 24 witnesses for the prosecution.

The next morning, the lawyers and the families of the prisoners arrived in Insein Jail at 9 o'clock, as they had heard sentence would be passed that day. The area around the jail entrance was full of security personnel and all the shops along the road were shut. The lawyers were refused entry. They were told sentence would only be passed at the end of the month and were asked to leave. However, as the magistrate concerned with the case had been seen at the Insein Township Magistrate's Court the lawyers were convinced the trial was scheduled to proceed within a matter of hours and continued to wait outside the jail.

The magistrate eventually arrived and entered the prison precincts at around 2 o'clock and came out again after about 40 minutes. The lawyers followed him to the Insein Township Court to ask what kind of sentence had been passed. The magistrate, very nervous and surrounded by security personnel, would only say that an application should be made to copy the records of the court proceedings. Some days later the government media announced that U Win Htein and others had been given seven-year prison sentences each.

The sight of kangaroos bounding away across an open prairie can sometimes be rather beautiful. The spectacle of the process of law bounding away from accepted norms of justice is very ugly at all times.