US embassy cable - 03RANGOON1326

C O N F I D E N T I A L RANGOON 001326 
 
SIPDIS 
 
TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/19/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, BM 
SUBJECT: BURMA: NEW SECRET POLICE SPECIAL UNITS 
 
REF: RANGOON 1314 
 
Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.5 (B,D) 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  In the last few months, the SPDC created 
two new Office of the Chief, Military Intelligence (OCMI) 
special units in Rangoon to focus on monitoring and 
responding to political challenges to the new 7-point 
roadmap.  The offices, Special Unit Number 1 and Special Unit 
Number 2, have authority to arrest, interrogate, and detain 
suspects without notifying the 26 existing Ward-level OCMI 
offices, and may also have a mandate to support the execution 
of the seven-point roadmap to democracy.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (C)  U Win Naing, a local political operator briefly 
detained in late September by OCMI (see reftel), told Poloff 
that a few months ago, OCMI opened two new special units in 
northern Rangoon evidently dedicated to handling only the 
most sensitive of political cases.  As proof of this, Naing 
cited how he was arrested and taken not to the local OCMI 
office, one of 26 in the Rangoon area, but to a new OCMI 
office on the north end of Rangoon.  He described it as OCMI 
Rangoon Division #2 Special Unit, and explained that this new 
unit is much more powerful than Rangoon's 26 local Township 
OCMI units.  The 26 different township OCMI units and three 
special support units are each commanded by a major.  The two 
new Special Units are each commanded by a lieutenant colonel 
and have three majors as deputies.  After his release later 
that day, U Win Naing was told by his local Township OCMI 
office contact that they had been completely unaware of his 
arrest, questioning, and release until after the fact. 
 
3.  (C) Through his nine-hour questioning by OCMI #2 Special 
Unit was quite civil, Win Naing also said that while on a 
bathroom break he saw two interrogation rooms where the 
prisoners were in handcuffs and blindfolds, and were kept 
standing during their interrogation.  Win Naing also said 
OCMI required him to sign a secrecy agreement regarding his 
questioning, which delayed his reporting the arrests to 
western diplomats and news media for two weeks.  Win Naing 
said he believed the new Special Units were designed to be an 
upgrade of the OCMI. 
 
3.  (C) COMMENT:  This is the first time Post has received 
information of these new OCMI Special Units.  The SPDC is not 
tolerating any public opposition regarding the roadmap or any 
other political issue.  However, the SPDC has less control 
over the ethnic leaders, who publicly reject the roadmap and 
a Constitutional Convention unless the democratic opposition 
is fully involved in the process.  It is possible that the 
SPDC created the Special Units to assist in pushing forward 
the seven-point roadmap, by focusing the Units specifically 
on interdicting anti-roadmap activities and by also actively 
pressuring opposition politicians to join in the process.  It 
appears that the new unit was responsible for sounding out U 
Win Naing in his willingness to attending a new 
Constitutional Convention, despite his publicly stated 
opposition of the roadmap in its present form.  If this 
proves to be true, the new OCMI Special Units will become 
very well known to opposition politicians.  END COMMENT. 
Martinez