An investigation began yesterday into a soldier’s alleged rape of a 19-year-old while she was tending cattle near her home in the central Burmese division of Magway...
Proceedings against Private Maung Maung Che of Infantry Battalion 77 (IB 77) were being held inside the military unit’s compound in Yenangyaung Township, where the rape victim’s sister said she and her parents and three witnesses were summoned to testify in the case.
She said however that the case title atop the summons made no mention of “rape” but said the private was being charged with: “Violation of military discipline and causing a public disturbance while drunk”.
The prosecution accused Maung Maung Che of committing rape against the 19-year-old woman as she was tending a grazing herd in a field just 50 yards from her home.
Her five-year-old niece raised the alarm upon hearing the young woman’s cries for help and villagers working nearby came to rescue her, the prosecutor said. They then captured the soldier and took him to the police station in Nyaunghla ward.
Later on the same day, IB 77 commander Lieutenant Colonel Tin Maung Oo retrieved Maung Maung Che from the police cells, police corporal Tin Tun, who was on duty, confirmed. Burmese police have no jurisdiction over cases related to military units.
Mizzima spoke by phone to a Magway District Hospital health official, who said that it had issued to the inquiry a certificate that the victim had undergone a medical examination, but declined to give further details.
IB 77 officers had offered the family of young woman a cash settlement but the family rejected the offer, a relative said.
A Yenangyaung resident told Mizzima that a police sub-inspector – injured during the last water festival in a brawl between soldiers of the same battalion and town police – was unable to seek redress because police were unable to sue members of the military.
