BANGKOK, Nov. 16 — Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, the United Nations human rights envoy to Myanmar, said today that at least 15 people, not 10 as previously reported, were killed in the military government’s crackdown on protesters in September, according to records from a hospital and a cemetery.
Mr. Pinheiro, the first independent investigator given access to the country since troops quashed peaceful anti-government demonstrations, ended his five-day mission to Myanmar on Thursday. He said he would release his own estimates on the number of people killed and detained in two weeks, prior to presenting them to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Dec. 11. The government’s number, he said, was just for Yangon, the country’s biggest city.
“They have shown interest in cooperating,” Mr. Pinheiro said of the Burmese authorities at a news conference the United Nations offices in Bangkok today. “I had access to most of the authorities I requested. I was able to interview some prisoners.”
But he said his trip “cannot be considered as a full-fledged fact-finding mission” because the “conditions for an independent and confidential investigation” were not met.
Mr. Pinheiro was given a number of detailed records regarding the number of people detained in the crackdown in September and the causes of death of those killed, he said. But he was denied a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who has been held under house arrest on and off for the last 18 years.
Hopes were raised last week that Myanmar’s military government would begin to reconcile with dissidents and move more swiftly toward democracy after the junta allowed Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with top members of her party for the first time in three years.
But those hopes have dimmed somewhat this week with the arrests of two high-profile democracy activists and the apparent start of a campaign questioning Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s role and legitimacy as the leader of the country’s opposition.
Today’s front-page of The New Light of Myanmar, the government mouthpiece, was exclusively devoted to letters from representatives of ethnic groups saying they rejected Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s claim to represent them.
In a statement last week, she said it was her “duty” to represent not only her political party but as a “broad a range of political organizations and forces as possible, in particular those of our ethnic nationality races.”
Mr. Pinheiro was allowed one-on-one meetings with five detainees at Insein Prison, including Win Tin, a leader of the 1988 uprising that came close to unseating the military government. Mr. Win Tin, who has been in detention for the past 18 years, is among the longest-serving political prisoners in the country.
“They need better medical treatment,” Mr. Pinheiro said of the political prisoners. He also urged the government to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The military government provided a complete list of detainees, Mr. Pinheiro said. Among those he interviewed was Su Su Nway, a dissident who was arrested during his visit for trying to put up anti-government posters near Mr. Pinheiro’s hotel.
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