Human rights and the crisis in Myanmar law enforcement

With crime on the rise and unsolved murder cases piling up, Myanmar’s new government is facing a crisis in law enforcement.

The police force has been under tight military control for more than four decades. During that time, the force has been led by former high-ranking members of the military rather than alumni of the police academy. Nothing has changed under the new civilian government, with former army officers still in charge. 

The military’s firm grip has rendered the force almost obsolete. Police investigators lack proper training or resources to track down criminals, resulting in a growing pile of unsolved cases. Myanmar has no properly trained forensic experts. 

The climate of lawlessness is exacerbated by rampant corruption within the force, with police officers taking bribes from criminals to look the other way. As a result even high-profile criminal cases are shelved after little or no investigation. Testimony by victims and witnesses often goes ignored in police stations and cases sink without a trace.

When a female college student was killed in a recent hit-and-run incident, her desperate father apprehended the driver after the police failed to act. In another high-profile case of police negligence, the mother of a daughter bullied out of her gold jewellery stepped in to catch the culprits. 

More alarming still is the failure to catch the culprit(s) in a spate of murders that has occurred since July. 

Meanwhile the Human Rights Commission formed under the previous government of Thein Sein is failing in its duty. Acting like a broker for the abusers, its is intimidating victims against going to court and encouraging them to accept compensation even for serious crimes.

In a recent case that made headlines, two girls aged 16 and 17 told of years of torture at the hands of their employer in a tailor shop. A witness to the torture – which resulted in 10 broken fingers, knife-slash marks, a broken arm, burns and cuts – informed a reporter, who called the police several times but got no response.  

Three months later, the reporter was summoned to the Human Rights Commission office for a meeting between the two victims, their parents and the abusers. The commission urged the parents to abandon any thought of justice through legal action and accept compensation of some 5,000,000 kyats (US$5,000) instead. Knowing little about the law and no doubt intimidated by the officials, the uneducated parents readily accepted the deal. The news caused outrage and went viral on social media, overshadowing even Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip to the United States at the time and prompting protests in front of the Human Rights Commission. 

Formed by a quasi-military regime desperate to convince the world it was serious about protecting human rights, the commission appears in fact to be guarding the old power and privileges of the army and security agencies against the rights of ordinary citizens. 

Under the new democratic government of President Htin Kyaw, the system has remained the same and there’s little hope for change while the military still controls all important appointments.

Myanmar’s so-called Human Rights Commission needs to be reformed and placed in the hands of capable lawyers and genuine rights watchdogs. The country has a long way to go in shaping a professional and effective law enforcement institution. It must draw its chiefs from within, from those who have joined the police academy and risen through the ranks, rather than army top brass parachuted in with little   knowledge of the law and regulations. Meanwhile we urgently need to train a new generation of forensic lab technicians, investigators, and crime scene  detectives. Bright young police cadets need to be sent to study advance investigation methods abroad to improve their skills. 

The good news is that the tainted Human Rights Commission is set for an overhaul after attracting official ire over one too many controversial cases. Reform is well overdue. The commission, which features among its member a former army commander notorious for his punishment of political prisoners under the junta, is regarded as a joke by most Myanmar citizens. It’s time to forge a genuine watchdog that protects the people’s rights, not the power of those who violate them.