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Burma: an interview with Iqbal

By David Calleja - posted Wednesday, 29 April 2009


Iqbal was interrogated and beaten by members of both Military Intelligence (MI-3) and the Navy, as he lived close to the port attached to the Rangoon River before being subjected to beatings. This began his two and a half year sentence, commencing with a month’s incarceration at the notorious Insein Prison without charge.

“For four days, I was laid on my side and handcuffed behind my back. The navy officers placed a hood over my head so I could not recognise anybody,” Iqbal elaborates. For a moment, I considered getting up from my chair so he could show me exactly what position he was forced into, but I decided against this.

Officers rotated every two hours and on several occasions, Iqbal was beaten by multiple navy officers. “I was deprived of food, water, sleep or medicine. My psychological and mental state was so bad as a result of the pain, I started banging my head on the table incessantly so that I split my head open and (would) receive treatment and hopefully get a reprieve from all of the torture,” he says without pausing. After four days, Iqbal was given one slice of bread, a cup of water and some medicine to treat the head wound. The beatings, however, continued.

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In January 1991, Iqbal was found guilty of causing unrest and sentenced to three years hard labour. He shared a prison cell with 200 people, both common criminals as well as political prisoners. Family members and friends were able to visit him once a fortnight for 15 minutes at a time, but prison authorities made them wait in for numerous hours before being given access.

Following his release in 1993, Iqbal’s story became keenly sought after, and he was interviewed by an Australian journalist in Rangoon about his experiences of torture in jail. This material appeared alongside interviews with Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin U (co-leader of the NLD) for a documentary that appeared on Australia’s ABC TV network in April 1996. The Burmese Embassy in Canberra recorded a copy of this program on videotape and sent it to the military junta in Rangoon.

With a sustained media focus about the documentary’s contents, Iqbal was arrested for a second time in June 1996, again after leaving Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence in Hle Den Junction, near Rangoon University. He was sentenced to seven years jail. The junta also planned to sue Suu Kyi and Iqbal for subversion and for spreading misinformation about the political and social situation in Burma.

“I escaped torture after being arrested because Aung San Suu Kyi personally intervened by meeting with the junta leadership and filing a missing person’s report on my behalf,” Iqbal tells me. While in Tharyarwaddy prison, he met with Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Violations in Burma, and gave evidence regarding torture within Burma’s prisons. This resulted in interrogation from intelligence officials by Pegu Division over comments he made about the allegations.

Upon being set free in November 2002, two years after Suu Kyi had been re-arrested by the junta and placed under house arrest, Iqbal became politically active again. He was assigned to Suu Kyi’s Social Standing Committee for the NLD, and at time the same time, collected data on the state of Burma’s prisons and assisted former and current political prisoners attain better access to health and education. In mid-July 2004, he was seriously advised to stop everything for his own good by intelligence officials, and at this point made the decision to leave the country.

After gaining financial assistance for food and clothing, Iqbal took a bus from Rangoon to Myawaddy, where a local guide helped him get across the river to Mae Sot, Thailand. Eventually he entered the Mae La refugee camp, where he remained for four years. The camp houses more than 40,000 refugees from Burma, mainly ethnic Karen people. The Thai army runs the camp, but it is administered by the Karen National Union (KNU).

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Since arriving in Australia in 2008, Iqbal now works closely with supporters of the NLD Party living in the country, but does not have an official role. He is a representative of the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners Burma, providing support for political prisoners and their families. But he is concerned about possible repercussions against his sisters who are in refugee camps in Thailand.

Surviving torture as a political prisoner leaves Iqbal convinced that everybody has the right to stand up to their aggressors and attackers when meeting outside of their comfortable environment. This brings everyone onto a level playing field. “Following my release from prison in 1993, I spoke to the generals who ran the prison where I was incarcerated. I met them inside a tea shop,” Iqbal says, then looks me in the eye. When I query him as to whether he was frightened to approach them, he shakes his head.
“I declared, ‘We do what we believe in. You did terrible things to us. If we want to get revenge, we can do it easily. But we do not want to do that. The bruises you inflicted are not there anymore, but the scars will remain with us forever.’” It is this defiance that is nurtured by survival from an environment of war and its aftermath, and Iqbal explains to me that when authority members in Burma stick together in numbers, they feel invincible. But as individuals on the street, they are frightened.

Our conversation inevitably focuses on Aung San Suu Kyi, the politician he protected for many years.

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About the Author

David Calleja is a freelance writer who is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy Journal and Hack Writers. In 2008, he worked as a teacher and soccer coach in the Internally Displaced Persons camp based in Loi Tailang, Shan State, Burma. His writing focuses on human interest stories in Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. David has also worked as an English teacher in South Korea, China, Thailand and Cambodia. His video depicting the lives of families living on the grounds of Steung Meanchey Waste Dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, A Garbage Diet, can be viewed here.

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