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FILE PHOTO: Police stop after seizing Sanchaung district in search of anti-coup protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, on March 8, 2021. REUTERS / Stringer
Myanmar security forces surrounded the compound of striking railway workers who oppose the military junta on Wednesday when ousted lawmakers appointed an interim vice president to take over from the detained politicians.
In New York, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a statement that would have condemned the coup in Myanmar, called for restraint on the part of the military and threatened to consider “new measures.”
Talks on the statement are likely to continue, diplomats said, after China, Russia, India and Vietnam suggested amendments Tuesday night to a British draft, including removing the reference to a coup and threatening to consider new ones. Actions.
Railway personnel in Yangon are part of a civil disobedience movement that has paralyzed government business and included strikes at banks, factories and shops since the army overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup on 1 February.
Security forces have increasingly cracked down on daily nationwide protests, leaving the Southeast Asian nation in a state of confusion.
More than 60 protesters have been killed and 1,900 people have been arrested since the coup, said the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, an advocacy group.
Images posted on social media showed security forces near the railway staff compound. A person involved in the strike said by phone that they feared imminent repression.
“I think they are going to arrest us. Please help us, ”said the person, who asked to be identified only as Ma Su instead of her full name.
In a Facebook live feed from the area, people chanted, “Are we united with the staff? Yes, we are united, ”and one commentator claimed that the police were trying to remove barricades and were threatening to shoot.
Details could not be independently verified. Police and army officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, protesters held a sit-in protest on Wednesday, chanting: “Resolution must prevail.”
On Tuesday, Zaw Myat Linn, a Suu Kyi National League for Democracy (NLD) official, died in custody after being arrested, the second party figure to die in custody in two days.
“He has been continuously participating in the protests,” said Ba Myo Thein, a member of the dissolved upper house of parliament. The cause of death was unclear.
In a Facebook live feed before his arrest, Zaw Myat Linn urged people to continue fighting the army, “even if it costs us our lives.”
Media repression
In a symbolic gesture, an announcement posted on the NLD’s Facebook page on Tuesday said that the ousted lawmakers had appointed Mahn Win Khaing Than, who was the speaker of the upper house, as acting vice president to carry out the duties of the arrested president. Win Myint and leader Suu Kyi. Mahn Win Khaing Than’s whereabouts were unknown.
On Tuesday, the police also cracked down on independent media, raiding the offices of two media outlets and detaining two journalists.
At least 35 journalists have been arrested since the February 1 coup, Myanmar Now reported, of whom 19 have been released.
Some policemen have rejected orders to fire on unarmed protesters and have fled to neighboring India, according to an interview with an officer and classified documents from the Indian police.
“As the civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum and protests by anti-coup protesters in different locations, we are ordered to fire on protesters,” four officers said in a joint statement to police in the Indian city of Mizoram.
“In such a scenario, we don’t have the guts to shoot our own people who are peaceful protesters,” they said.
The United States is “disgusted” by the continued use of deadly force by the Myanmar military against its people and continues to urge the military to exercise “the utmost restraint,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.
The military has justified the coup by saying that the November elections won by the NLD were marred by fraud, a claim rejected by the electoral commission. He has promised a new election, but has not said when it could be held.
The board hired an Israeli-Canadian lobbyist for $ 2 million to “help explain the real situation” of the army’s coup to the United States and other countries, documents submitted to the US Justice Department show.
Ari Ben-Menashe and his firm, Dickens & Madson Canada, will represent Myanmar’s military government in Washington, in addition to lobbying Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Russia, and international organizations such as the United Nations, according to a consultancy agreement. .
International powers have condemned the takeover, which derailed a slow transition to democracy in a country that has been ruled by the military for long periods since independence from Great Britain in 1947.
The army has ignored condemnation of their actions, as it has in past periods of army rule, when outbreaks of protest were forcibly suppressed.
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