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YANGON: Three protesters were killed in Myanmar on Monday (March 8), witnesses said, as protesters across the country sought to paralyze the economy with a strike after a weekend of nightly raids and arrests.
Stores, factories and banks in the main city of Yangon were closed.
Photos posted on Facebook showed the bodies of two men lying on the street in the northern city of Myitkyina. Witnesses said they were participating in a protest when police fired stun grenades and tear gas. Later, several people were hit by gunfire from nearby buildings.
A witness, who said he helped move the bodies, told Reuters that two people were shot in the head and killed on the spot. Three people were injured.
“How inhumane it is to kill unarmed civilians,” said the witness, a 20-year-old man. “We must have our right to protest peacefully.”
It was not immediately clear who shot the protesters, although both the police and the army were at the protest, witnesses said.
At least one person was killed and two injured during a protest in the town of Phyar Pon in the Irrawaddy Delta, a political activist and local media said.
Police and the army have killed more than 50 people to quell daily demonstrations and strikes against the February 1 coup, according to the United Nations last week.
A military spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment on the latest incidents. The Myitkyina and Phyar Pon police also did not respond to calls.
Crowds demonstrating against the coup gathered in Yangon, as well as the second-largest city, Mandalay, and several other cities, according to videos posted on Facebook.
The protesters in Dawei, a coastal city in the south, were protected by the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic group engaged in a long-running war with the army.
Protesters march with makeshift shields on a main road during a demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)
Protesters waved flags made of htamain (women’s sarongs) in places or hung them on lines across the street to mark International Women’s Day while denouncing the junta. Walking under women’s sarongs is traditionally considered bad luck for men and tends to slow down the police and soldiers.
Protesters gather next to a collection of longyi, a traditional clothing widely used in Myanmar, hung along a road during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on March 7, 2021 (Photo: AFP / STR).
State media said security forces maintained a presence in hospitals and universities as part of law enforcement efforts.
At least nine unions spanning sectors such as construction, agriculture and manufacturing have called on “all the people of Myanmar” to stop working to reverse the coup and restore the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Allowing business and economic activity to continue would help the military “while suppressing the energy of the Myanmar people,” the unions said in a statement.
“The time to act in defense of our democracy is now.”
Protesters hold up banners and display a three-finger resistance sign on a main road during a rally in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 8, 2021. (AP Photo)
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‘FIGHT AGAINST FEAR’
Unions are trying to spread the impact of an ongoing “Civil Disobedience Movement,” a campaign urging public officials to boycott work under the military regime, which has already hit the state machine hard.
The impact has been felt at all levels of the national infrastructure, with hospital outages, empty ministerial offices, and banks that cannot operate.
The board warned that public officials “will be fired” with immediate effect Monday if they continue to strike.
Only a few small tea shops were open in Yangon, witnesses said. The main shopping centers were closed and there was no work in the factories.
Protest leader Maung Saungkha on Facebook urged the women to demonstrate vigorously against the coup on Monday, while Nay Chi, one of the organizers of the pareo movement, described the women as “revolutionary.”
“Our people are unarmed but they are wise. They try to rule with fear, but we will fight against that fear,” he told Reuters.
In a statement Monday, the military said it had arrested 41 people the day before.
An official and local campaign manager for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), Khin Maung Latt, died in police custody on Sunday.
Ba Myo Thein, a deposed lawmaker, said reports of bruises on Khin Maung Latt’s head and body raised suspicions that he had been “severely tortured.”
Police in Yangon’s Pabedan District, where Khin Maung Latt was arrested on Saturday night, declined to comment. An army spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment.
The military has said it is dealing with the protests legally.
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Figures from the advocacy group the Association for Assistance for Political Prisoners showed that nearly 1,800 people have been detained under the board as of Sunday.
An army ad on the front page of the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Monday threatened unspecified “action” against anyone working directly or indirectly for a committee of ousted lawmakers who have declared themselves the legitimate authority of the country.
The ad said the committee was illegal and had committed “high treason.” A separate report said the army and police were “maintaining” hospitals and universities.
The killings have drawn ire in the West and have been condemned by most democracies in Asia.
The United States and some other Western countries have imposed limited sanctions on the junta and Australia cut defense ties on Sunday, saying it would only deal with non-governmental groups in Myanmar.
Myanmar’s giant neighbor China said on Sunday it was willing to engage with “all parties” to alleviate the crisis and was not taking sides.
