Protests swell in Myanmar
UN expert warns troop mobilisation could signal prospect of major violence
YANGON: Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon on Wednesday, in one of the largest protests yet against the coup, despite warnings from a UN human rights expert that recent troop movements could indicate the military was planning a violent crackdown.
Protesters marched carrying signs calling for ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be released while others feigned car trouble, strategically abandoning their vehicles — and leaving the hoods up — to prevent security forces from easily accessing the demonstrations. One motorist explained tongue-in-cheek that his car had broken down “due to the suffering that our people are undergoing now. We just stopped the cars here on the road to show that we do not want the military regime.”
Large rallies were also held in the country’s second-biggest city, Mandalay, and the capital Naypyitaw, in defiance of an order banning gatherings of five or more people.
The demonstrations came a day after UN rapporteur Tom Andrews expressed alarm at reports of soldiers being transported into Yangon, noting that such movements had previously preceded killings, disappearances and mass arrests. “I am terrified that given the confluence of these two developments — planned mass protests and troops converging — we could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar,” he said in a statement issued by the UN Human Rights office in Geneva. By Wednesday evening, there had been no reports of major violence.
The protesters on Wednesday rejected an army assertion that there was public support for overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and said their campaign would not burn out.
Protesters are sceptical of the junta’s assurances, given on Tuesday, that there would be a fair election and it would hand over power, even as police filed a second charge against Suu Kyi.
“We’re showing here that we’re not in that 40 million they announced,” Sithu Maung, an elected member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) told a cheering crowd at the Sule Pagoda, a central protest site in the main city of Yangon.
Brig Gen Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling council, told the Tuesday news conference that 40mn of the 53mn population supported the military’s action, which he said was in line with the constitution.