The New York Times-20080127-Rights Group Accuses Myanmar of Holding More Dissidents

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Rights Group Accuses Myanmar of Holding More Dissidents

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Four months after a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, the government of Myanmar has stepped up arrests of dissenters, breaking a promise to the United Nations, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

Rather than stop its unlawful arrests, the Myanmar government has actually accelerated them, Amnesty International, a London-based group, said in a report on Friday.

It said the junta had arrested 96 people since November, when it assured a United Nations envoy that it would bring the detentions to a halt.

Instead of bowing to demands for moderation from around the world, the group said, the government's chief priority is to silence its citizens who would hold them to account.

The demonstrations, touched off in August by a sudden rise in fuel prices, swelled to mass pro-democracy street protests led by monks before the military cracked down in late September.

The government has acknowledged the deaths of a dozen people. The United Nations says that it has confirmed at least 31 deaths and that 74 people remain missing.

In another show of defiance, Myanmar's military junta has also postponed an invitation to the special United Nations envoy to whom it made the promise in November to end the arrests.

The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was appointed to represent the demands of members of the United Nations, who had expressed outrage at the televised scenes of violence against the protesters.

Mr. Gambari has visited twice and was promised a third visit soon, as part of what Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma, said was a policy of cooperation with the United Nations. But the junta now says it will not be convenient for him to visit until April.

This is business as usual for them, said U Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, an exile magazine published in Thailand.

When they are under siege, they always create such a smoke screen to keep away international pressure, he said. They postpone, they say they are restoring normalcy, they keep arresting people.

As the months have passed, the world's attention has moved elsewhere, talk of sanctions has faded and diplomats and exile groups say the junta has tightened its grip on its citizens.

People should realize they are being fooled, Mr. Aung Zaw said.

The United Nations Security Council criticized Myanmar in mid-January for delaying the release of political prisoners and moving slowly on a promised dialogue with the pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.

Responding to earlier demands from the United Nations, the junta appointed a middle-level official to be its liaison with her. He has been reported to have met with her only four times, and there has been no public word of any substantive result.

Amnesty International said 1,850 political prisoners were being held, including at least 700 people arrested during and after the protests.

The group said more than 80 people were unaccounted for and are likely the victims of enforced disappearance.

It said at least 15 of the detained protesters and their supporters had been sentenced to prison terms since Mr. Gambari's last visit.

In December the junta asserted that only 80 prisoners remained of 3,000 people who were rounded up during and after the crackdown.

One of the most recent arrests, just last week, was of a prominent poet, U Saw Wai, who published a Valentine's Day poem in a weekly magazine that carried a hidden message poking fun at the leader of the ruling junta.

The first letters of its lines spelled out the words Senior General Than Shwe is power-crazy.