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YANGON: Myanmar activists have called for large protests against the coup this weekend as the junta commemorates Armed Forces Day, following a firebomb attack on the party headquarters of deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The country has been in crisis since the military toppled the Nobel laureate in a lightning coup on February 1, sparking an uprising demanding a return to democracy.
Almost 3,000 people have been arrested since the coup, according to a local monitoring group, but the board earlier this week released more than 600 from Insein prison in Yangon.
On Friday, a senior official at the jail, known to be the long-standing place of detention for political prisoners, confirmed that another 322 people were released.
“A total of 249 men and 73 women were released,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
READ: Firebomb attack on Aung San Suu Kyi party headquarters in Myanmar
The eve of Armed Forces Day arrives on Saturday, when the military will put on a show of force with their annual parade.
Fears have emerged that the day will turn into a fever pitch as the security forces have continued to crack down on activists, protesters and political allies of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Before dawn on Friday, the Yangon offices of its National League for Democracy (NLD) were hit by a Molotov cocktail, setting off a brief fire.
The attack left only minor damage, but the party has been in disarray since the coup, with many of its top leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, arrested and some of its MPs in hiding.
“We don’t know who did this, but it’s not good,” Soe Win, the NLD member in charge of the headquarters, told AFP.
PROTEST CALL
Activists called for nationwide protests against the junta on Saturday.
“The time has come to fight the oppression of the military,” prominent activist Ei Thinzar Maung posted on Facebook, calling for people to take to the streets on March 27.
The protest movement has included widespread strikes and civil disobedience by government workers, which has paralyzed the functioning of the state.
This has angered the authorities, who have used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to break up street demonstrations, and have arrested people suspected of supporting the civil disobedience campaign.
On Thursday night in the Bago region, neighboring Yangon, police went to the home of NLD MP Kyaw Aye Win, who is currently in hiding, to arrest his son.
READ: Myanmar anti-coup activists plan new street protests after crippling strike
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The arrest provoked the ire of the protesters who gathered in front of the police station to demand his release.
“When the police tried to break up the crowd of protesters, a man was shot dead,” said a Phyu Township legislator, adding that the deceased was a college student who was shot in the face.
The Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), a local monitoring group, says 320 people have been killed and nearly 3,000 arrested since the coup.
To protect themselves from violence, some activists have devised creative ways to protest, such as marching at dawn and organizing “human-free” rallies, using objects or dolls instead of people.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, white doctors’ coats with spray-painted black ribbons were hung at the entrance of a clinic, in apparent mourning for those killed in the riots.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, white medical coats with spray-painted black ribbons were hung at the entrance of a clinic, in apparent mourning for the victims killed in the riots AFP / Handout
“WITHDRAWAL FROM POLICY”
The Karen National Union (KNU), a key ethnic rebel group, released a letter on Friday addressed to the leader of the board, General Min Aung Hlaing, acknowledging an invitation from the regime to meet.
“The KNU finds it completely unacceptable that the police and (the military), whose responsibilities are to protect and defend their own people, have killed, attacked and threatened peaceful protesters,” said the letter, dated March 22.
He called for the release of all those detained since the coup, the cessation of acts of “violence” and that the military “withdraw from their active participation in politics.”
“(The) KNU can meet with him only after the (military) Tatmadaw implements the following essential wishes of the people,” he said.
READ: Security forces open fire on protesters in Myanmar’s Karen state
The group, which has been fighting the military for decades for greater autonomy, is currently home to hundreds of anti-coup protesters who have fled to its militia-controlled territory in the east of the country.
International players have racked up general convictions and sanctions.
The latest came overnight from the United States and former colonial power Britain, which has targeted a huge conglomerate of military property that gives army chiefs access to enormous wealth.
