In Yangon, anti-coup protests ring out

MYANMAR

The din of banging pots and honking horns reverberated through Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, late on Tuesday in the first widespread protest against the military coup that overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The party of the detained Nobel laureate called for her release by the junta that seized power Monday and is keeping her at an undisclosed location.

A senior official from her

National League for Democracy (NLD) said he had learned she was in good health a day after her arrest in a military takeover that derailed Myanmar's tentative progress toward full democracy.

The UN Security Council was due to meet later on Tuesday amid calls for a strong global response to the military's latest seizure of power in a country blighted for decades by army rule.

U.S. State Department officials said the takeover had been determined to constitute a coup d'etat, triggering restrictions in foreign assistance.

In the biggest public display of anger so far, people in Yangon banged on pots and pans and honked car horns and chanted “evil be gone.”

“It is a Myanmar tradition to drive away evil or bad karma by beating tin or metal buckets,” said Yangon resident San Tint.

People have not taken to the streets so far in a country with a history of bloody repression of protests.

The coup followed a landslide win for Suu Kyi's NLD in an election on Nov. 8, a result the military has refused to accept, citing unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.

The army handed power to its commander, General Min Aung Hlaing, and imposed a state of emergency for a year.

Min Aung Hlaing told the first meeting of his new government on Tuesday that it was inevitable the army would have to take power after its protests over the alleged election fraud last year were rejected.

At the UN, Myanmar envoy Christine Schraner Burgener told the Security Council that the military's proposal to hold new elections should be discouraged.