Protesters in Myanmar on Thursday marked two months since the military seized power by once more defying the threat of lethal violence and publicly demonstrating against the toppling of the democratically elected government.
The Feb. 1 coup has been met with massive public resistance that security forces have been unable to crush through escalating levels of violence, including now routinely shooting protesters. Outside efforts including sanctions imposed by Western nations on the military regime have failed to help restore peace.
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Protesters in Myanmar on Thursday marked two months since the military seized power by once more defying the threat of lethal violence and publicly demonstrating against the toppling of the democratically elected government.
Protests were also held in Mandalay and elsewhere.
That's a stark reversal for Myanmar, which prior to the coup had been making slow progress toward greater democracy following decades of brutal military rule.
Saw Kholo Htoo, the deputy director for Karen Teacher Working Group, said residents told him five people were killed at the mine and another six at a nearby village. The Bago Weekly Journal also reported the attack.
The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, warned Wednesday that the country faces the possibility of civil war and urged the U.N. Security Council to consider “potentially significant action” to restore democracy.
In Yangon, the country’s biggest city, a group of young people shortly after sunrise Thursday sang solemn songs honoring the more than 500 protesters killed so far. They then marched through the streets chanting slogans calling for the fall of the junta, the release of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the return of democracy.
Anti-coup protesters burn constitution books at Tarmwe township in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday April 1, 2021. Opponents of Myanmar’s military government declared the country’s 2008 constitution void and put forward an interim replacement charter late Wednesday in a major political challenge to the ruling junta. (AP Photo)
Protests were also held in Mandalay and elsewhere.
The demonstrations followed a night of violence including police raids and several fires. In Yangon, several retail shops owned in whole or part by Myanma Economic Holdings Limited, which is an investment arm of the military, went up in flames. The shops are the targets of boycotts by the protest movement.
The crisis in the Southeast Asian nation has expanded sharply in the past week, both in the number of protesters killed and with the military launching airstrikes against the guerrilla forces of the Karen ethnic minority in their homeland on the border with Thailand. The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar warned the country faces the possibility of civil war.
A car passes by the burned military-controlled Ruby Mart after a fire in Yangon, Myanmar, early Thursday, April 1, 2021. (AP Photo)
That's a stark reversal for Myanmar, which prior to the coup had been making slow progress toward greater democracy following decades of brutal military rule.
In areas controlled by the Karen, more than a dozen civilians have been killed since Saturday and more than 20,000 have been displaced, according to the Free Burma Rangers, a relief agency operating in the area.
In addition to those deaths, an airstrike Tuesday on a gold mine in Karen guerrilla territory on Tuesday left as many as 11 more people dead, said a local news outlet and an NGO worker in touch with residents near the site.
Flames rise after a fire broke out at the military-controlled Ruby Mart during a curfew in Yangon, Myanmar, early Thursday, April 1, 2021. (AP Photo)
Saw Kholo Htoo, the deputy director for Karen Teacher Working Group, said residents told him five people were killed at the mine and another six at a nearby village. The Bago Weekly Journal also reported the attack.
David Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers confirmed that a video of the attack’s aftermath showed the gold mine and that there had been airstrikes in the area.
About 3,000 Karen villagers have fled for safety in neighboring Thailand in recent days, but many have returned under unclear circumstances. Thai authorities said those displaced went back to Myanmar voluntarily after a brief stay, but humanitarian aid groups say they are not safe and many remain in hiding in the jungle and caves on the Myanmar side of the border.
Flame rises after a fire broke out at the military-controlled Ruby Mart during a curfew in Yangon, Myanmar, early Thursday, April 1, 2021. (AP Photo)
The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, warned Wednesday that the country faces the possibility of civil war and urged the U.N. Security Council to consider “potentially significant action” to restore democracy.
Burgener didn’t specify what action she considered significant, but she painted a dire picture of the military crackdown and told the council in a closed briefing that Myanmar “is on the verge of spiraling into a failed state.” A virtual presentation of the briefing was obtained by The Associated Press.
Any U.N. resolutions for concrete action such as a comprehensive ban on weapons sales to Myanmar would almost certainly be vetoed by China or Russia, who are political allies of the junta as well as major suppliers of arms to its military.
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at the military-controlled Ruby Mart in Yangon, Myanmar, early Thursday, April 1, 2021. (AP Photo)
Inside Myanmar, an opposition group made up of ousted lawmakers on Wednesday declared the country’s 2008 constitution void and put forward an interim replacement charter in another challenge to the ruling junta.
The moves, while more symbolic than practical, could help woo the country’s armed ethnic militias to ally themselves with the mass protest movement based in cities and towns.
The 2008 constitution, implemented under army rule, ensured the military maintained its dominance during the country’s decade of progress toward democracy, such as by reserving it enough seats in Parliament to block any charter changes and retaining responsibility for several key government ministries
The junta cites emergency provisions in the charter as giving its takeover on Feb. 1 constitutional legitimacy.
One of the aims of the interim constitution put forward by the ousted lawmakers is to meet the longstanding demands of its myriad ethnic minority groups for greater autonomy in their regions. In seeking an alliance with the ethnic minority armed groups, the lawmakers hope they will form a federal army as a counterweight to the government armed forces.
More than a dozen ethnic minority groups have for decades sought greater autonomy from the central government, sometimes through armed struggle. Even in times of peace, relations have been strained and ceasefires fragile.
Several of the major groups — including the Kachin, the Karen and the Rakhines’ Arakan Army in western Myanmar — have publicly denounced the coup and said they will defend protesters in the territory they control.
BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said as it freed more than 3,000 prisoners under an amnesty to mark this week's traditional New Year holiday.
Suu Kyi, 78, and Win Myint, the 72-year-old former president of her ousted government, were among the elderly and infirm prisoners moved to house arrest because of the severe heat, military spokesperson Maj. Gen. General Zaw Min Tun told foreign media representatives late Tuesday. The move has not yet been publicly announced in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi’s transfer comes as the army has been suffering a string of major defeats at the hands of pro-democracy resistance fighters and their allies in ethnic minority guerrilla forces. The nationwide conflict began after the army ousted the elected government in February 2021, imprisoned Suu Kyi and began suppressing nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule.
Suu Kyi has been serving a 27-year prison term on a variety of criminal convictions in a specially built annex of the main prison in the capital Naypyitaw, where Myanmar’s meteorological department said temperatures reached 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday afternoon. Win Myint was serving an eight-year prison sentence in Taungoo in Myanmar’s Bago region.
Suu Kyi's supporters and independent analysts say the charges were fabricated in an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power. The military had claimed that her National League for Democracy Party used widespread electoral fraud to win a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, an allegation independent observers found unconvincing.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent group that monitors casualties and arrests, more than 20,351 people arrested on political charges since the 2021 army takeover are still in detention, most of whom have not received criminal convictions.
Suu Kyi's health has reportedly deteriorated in prison. In September last year, reports emerged that she was suffering from symptoms of low blood pressure including dizziness and loss of appetite, but had been denied treatment at qualified facilities outside the prison system.
Those reports could not be independently confirmed, but her younger son Kim Aris said in interviews that he had heard that his mother has been extremely ill and has been suffering from gum problems and was unable to eat. Aris, who lives in the U.K., urged that Myanmar’s military government be pressured to free his mother and other political prisoners.
News about Suu Kyi is tightly controlled by the military government, and even her lawyers are banned by a gag order from talking to the media about her cases. Her legal team has faced several hurdles, including being unable to meet with her to receive her instructions since they last saw her in person in December 2022.
Whether the latest move was meant to be temporary was not announced.
Spokesperson Zaw Min Tun did not say where the released prisoners were being moved to in his remarks to U.S.-government funded Voice of America and Britain's BBC, but there was no indication it might be one of her own former homes. The lakeside house where Suu Kyi spent most of her years in house arrest is in legal limbo after a court-ordered auction in March failed to find a buyer.
Before being sent to prison, Suu Kyi was reportedly held in a military safe house inside an army base.
Other prisoners were released for the Thingyan New Year holiday, state-run MRTV television announced Wednesday, but it wasn’t immediately clear how many were pro-democracy activists and political prisoners who were detained for protesting army rule. Aung Myo Kyaw of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said the group had heard of 7-10 people released in Yangon and nine from a prison in the central regions of Magway.
MRTV said that the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, had pardoned 3,303 prisoners, including 28 foreigners who will be deported from Myanmar. He also reduced sentences for others. Mass amnesties on the holiday are not unusual in Myanmar.
Family and friends gathered outside the gates of Insein Prison, in northern Yangon, waiting expectantly and scanning the windows of buses that brought the released detainees out of the vast complex. Some of those waiting held up signs with the names of the people they were seeking, in the same fashion as at an airport arrival hall.
Amid tearful reunions, Khin Thu Zar said she was happy, but that she would have to call her family.
“My family still doesn’t know about my release,” she said. She, like many political detainees, had been held on a charge of incitement, a catch-all offense widely used to arrest critics of the government and punishable by up to three years in prison.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest by previous military governments between 1989 and 2010. Her tough stand against military rule turned her into a symbol of the nonviolent struggle for democracy and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson of the shadow National Unity Government, told The Associated Press that relocating Suu Kyi and Win Myint, instead of releasing them outright, was not satisfactory. The NUG views itself as the country’s legitimate administrative body and serves as an opposition umbrella organization.
He said all political prisoners, including those two, were unjustly detained and should be freed without conditions.
He said it was unacceptable for the military government to resolve its difficulties by playing political games, such as changing prisoners' places of detention and reducing sentences. The army's recent battlefield setbacks, including last week's loss to resistance forces of Myawaddy, a major trading town on the border with Thailand, is seen by many as underlining its increasing weakness.
A bus carrying released prisoners is welcomed by family members and colleagues after leaving Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said. On Wednesday it also granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Released prisoners sit in a bus and are welcomed by family members and colleagues after they were released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Family members and colleagues wait for prisoners to be released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. The signs show their family name. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
A released prisoner is welcomed by family members and colleagues after she was released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
A released prisoner is welcomed by family members and colleagues after she was released Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said. On Wednesday it also granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Released prisoners are welcomed by family members and colleagues after they were released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
A released prisoner is welcomed by family members and colleagues after she was released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Released prisoners are welcomed by family members and colleagues after they were released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. On Wednesday Myanmar's military government granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Released prisoners are welcomed by family members and colleagues after they were released Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as a health measure due to a heat wave, the military government said. On Wednesday it also granted amnesty for over 3,000 prisoners to mark this week’s traditional New Year holiday. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
FILE - Myanmar's President Win Myint shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping, unseen, during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Jan. 17, 2020. Myanmar’s military’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. General Zaw Min Tun, has told foreign media representatives late Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that 78-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi and the president of her former government, 72-year-old Win Myint, were among the elderly and infirm prisoners moved from out of prison because of the severe heat. The move has not yet been publicly announced in Myanmar. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo, File)
FILE - Myanmar's President Win Myint shakes hands with Philippine diplomat Rosario Manalo, unseen, a member of the Independent Commission of Enquiry for Rakhine State at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Jan. 20, 2020. Myanmar’s military’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. General Zaw Min Tun, has told foreign media representatives late Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that 78-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi and the president of her former government, 72-year-old Win Myint, were among the elderly and infirm prisoners moved from out of prison because of the severe heat. The move has not yet been publicly announced in Myanmar. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo, File)
FILE - Myanmar's lthen eader Aung San Suu Kyi waits to address judges of the International Court of Justice on the second day of three days of hearings in The Hague, Netherlands, Dec. 11, 2019. Myanmar’s military says Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as health measure due to a heat wave. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
FILE - Myanmar's then leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a speech during a meeting on implementation of Myanmar Education Development in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, Jan. 28, 2020. Myanmar’s military says Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest as health measure due to a heat wave. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo, File)
