Burma bans protests as resistance swells
RANGOON, Burma — Burma’s new military rulers on Monday signaled their intention to crack down on opponents of their takeover, issuing decrees that effectively banned peaceful public protests in the country’s two biggest cities.
The restrictive measures were ordered after police fired water cannons at hundreds of protesters in Burma’s capital, Naypyitaw, who were demanding the military hand power back to elected officials. It was just one of many demonstrations around the country.
Rallies and gatherings of more than five people, along with motorized processions, were banned, and an 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew was imposed for areas of Rangoon and Mandalay, the country’s first- and second-biggest cities, where thousands of people have been demonstrating since Saturday.
Protesters in Rangoon rallied Monday at a major downtown intersection raising three-finger salutes that are symbols of resistance and carrying placards saying, “Reject the military coup” and “Justice for Myanmar.”
Burma is often called Myanmar, a name that military authorities adopted in 1989. Some nations, such as the United States and Britain, have refused to adopt the name change.
There were also demonstrations in towns in the north, southeast and east of the country.
The decrees enabling the new restrictive measures were issued on a township-by-township basis, and were expected to be extended to other areas as well. They say they were issued in response to people carrying out unlawful actions that harm the rule of law, a reference to the protests.
The growing wave of defiance was striking in a country where demonstrations have been met with severe force in the past. The resistance in Naypyitaw — its population includes many civil servants and their families — spoke to the level of anger among people who had only begun to taste democracy in recent years after five decades of military rule.
The coup came the day newly elected lawmakers were supposed to take their seats in Parliament after November elections. The generals have said the vote was marred by fraud — though the country’s election commission has dismissed that claim.
State media for the first time on Monday made reference to the protests, claiming they were endangering the country’s stability.
“Democracy can be destroyed if there is no discipline,” said a statement from the Ministry of Information, read on state television station MRTV. “We will have to take legal actions to prevent acts that are violating state stability, public safety and the rule of law.”
However, the military commander who led the coup and is now Burma’s leader made no mention of the unrest in a 20-minute televised speech Monday night, his first to the public since the takeover.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing instead repeated the claims about voting fraud that have been the justification for the military’s takeover. He added that his junta would hold new elections as promised in a year and hand over power to the winners, and explained the junta’s intended policies for covid-19 control and the economy.
The growing protests recall previous movements in the Southeast Asian country’s long and bloody struggle for democracy. On Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters rallied at Rangoon’s Sule Pagoda, which was a focal point of demonstrations against military rule during a 1988 uprising and again during a 2007 revolt led by Buddhist monks. The military used deadly force to end both of those uprisings. Aside from a few officers, soldiers have not walked the streets at protests this past week.
Photos of the standoff in Naypyitaw on Monday showed a vast crowd of protesters hemmed in on several sides by large numbers of police and police vehicles. Officers there trained a water cannon on the crowd, which was gathered near a giant statue of Aung San, who led the country’s 1940s fight for independence from Britain and is the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected leader who was deposed by last week’s takeover.
Suu Kyi — who became an international symbol of the country’s fight for freedom while detained in her home for 15 years and earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts — is now back under house arrest.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent watchdog group, says 165 people, mostly politicians, had been detained since the Feb. 1 coup, with just 13 released.