The Burmese junta wanted to be firmer on Sunday February 22 by issuing a warning to those who challenge the February 1 putsch in the street. “The demonstrators are urging people, especially the exalted adolescents and young people, to embark on the path of confrontation where they will perish,” said a statement in Burmese read on the public channel MRTV, and including an English translation appeared on the screen. The text warned the demonstrators against the temptation to incite the population to “riot and anarchy”.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, Tom Andrews, said he was deeply concerned by the threats. “Warning to the junta: unlike 1988, the actions of the security forces are recorded and you will have to be held accountable,” he said on Twitter. The power’s warning did not deter protesters from taking to the streets of Yangon, where thousands of people gathered in two neighborhoods on Monday.
“We are so angry”
In the Bahan district, for example, demonstrators were sitting on the roadway holding up numerous banners in support of the former head of the civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held incommunicado since his arrest on February 1. “We are here today to participate in the protest, to fight until we win,” said Kyaw Kyaw, a 23-year-old student. “We are worried about the crackdown but we will continue. We are so angry ”.
The residents of Rangon have seen a strengthening of security arrangements in the capital, with a number of police and army trucks in the streets, while streets near the neighborhood had been barricaded by the security forces. Markets and stores should remain closed in solidarity with the pro-democracy movement. Demonstrations also took place in the towns of Myitkyina (north) and Dawei (south).
On Sunday, the Burmese paid tribute to the first victim of military repression, a young grocer who became an icon of the anti-junta resistance. The funeral of Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, shot in the head and died Friday after 10 days in intensive care, took place in the outskirts of the capital Naypyidaw, in the presence of several thousand people.
640 arrests since February 1
To the massive protests against their coup, the Burmese military responded by gradually stepping up the deployment of security forces, and increasingly using force to disperse the protesters. Rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons … the security services sometimes even resorted to live ammunition. According to the Association for Aid to Political Prisoners, 640 people have been arrested since the putsch. Among those targeted are railway workers, civil servants and bank employees who have stopped working in solidarity with the opposition to the junta.
It also attacked communications by drastically restricting access to the internet overnight from Sunday to Monday, for the eighth consecutive night, according to NetBlocks, a specialized observatory located in the United Kingdom. Connections are usually reestablished at 9:00 a.m. But the cut on Monday is expected to last three hours longer.
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