Myanmar junta
Myanmar junta deepens violence with new air attacks
Violence in eastern Myanmar, including air raids that drove thousands of members of the Karen ethnic minority to seek shelter across the border in Thailand, deepened Tuesday with new air attacks by the military that seized power from an elected government last month.
Thailand's prime minister denied that his country's security forces had forced villagers back to Myanmar who had fled from military airstrikes over the weekend, saying they returned home on their own accord.
But the situation in eastern Myanmar appeared to be getting more, not less, dangerous.
Saw Taw Nee, head of the foreign affairs department of the Karen National Union, the main political body representing the Karen minority there, confirmed that new raids Tuesday left six civilians dead and 11 wounded.
Dave Eubank, a member of the Free Burma Rangers, which provides medical assistance to villagers in the region, provided the same information.
The attacks by Myanmar's military led the KNU to issue a statement from one of its armed units saying that the government's "military ground troops are advancing into our territories from all fronts," and vowing to respond.
"We have no other options left but to confront these serious threats posed by the illegitimate military junta's army in order to defend our territory, our Karen peoples, and their self-determination rights," said the statement, issued in the name of the KNU office for the district that was first attacked on Saturday.
It said the attacks were the latest in a series of actions by Myanmar's military breaking a cease-fire agreement. The KNU has been fighting for greater autonomy for the Karen people.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, speaking before the latest air attacks, said his country is ready to shelter anyone who is escaping fighting, as it has done many times for decades. His comments came a day after humanitarian groups said Thailand has been sending back some of the thousands of people who have fled the air attacks by Myanmar's military.
"There is no influx of refugees yet. We asked those who crossed to Thailand if they have any problem in their area. When they say no problem, we just asked them to return to their land first. We asked, we did not use any force," Prayuth told reporters.
"We won't push them back," he said. 'If they are having fighting, how can we do so? But if they don't have any fighting at the moment, can they go back first?"
The governor of Thailand's Mae Hong Son province, where as many as 3,000 refugees had sought shelter, said later that those still on Thai soil were expected to return to their own country in a day or two.
The attacks are a further escalation of the violent crackdown by Myanmar's junta on protests against its Feb. 1 takeover.
At least 510 protesters have been killed since the coup, according to Myanmar's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which says the actual toll is likely much higher. It says 2,574 people have been detained.
Protests continued Tuesday despite the deaths of more than 100 people on Saturday alone.
Engineers, teachers and students from the technology university in the southern city of Dawei marched without incident.
The number of protesters killed in the city rose to eight with the announcement of the death of a teenager who was shot by soldiers on Saturday as he rode a motorbike with two friends. According to local media, a hospital certificate attributed his death to "serious injuries as he fell from a motorbike."
Medical workers in Mandalay, the country's second biggest city, honored three of their colleagues who have been killed by security forces. The two doctors and a nurse were remembered in a simple ceremony in front of a banner with their photographs and the words "Rest In Power."
At a cemetery in the biggest city, Yangon, three families gave their last farewells to relatives killed Monday in a night of chaos in the South Dagon neighborhood. Residents said police and soldiers moved through the streets firing randomly with live ammunition.
The coup that ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi reversed the country's progress toward democracy since her National League for Democracy party won elections in 2015 after five decades of military rule.
At Thailand's Mae Sam Laep village along the Salween River, which forms the border with Myanmar, paramilitary Thai Rangers on Tuesday twice waved off a boat that had come from the other side carrying seven people, including one lying flat and another with a bandage on his head. But ambulances soon arrived on the Thai side and it landed anyway.
Thai villagers helped medical staff carry the injured people on stretchers to a small clinic at a nearby checkpoint. One man had large bruises on his back with open wounds, an injury one medical staffer said could have been caused by an explosion.
An elderly woman in the group had small cuts and scabs all over her face. Thai nurses in protective gear to guard against COVID-19 attended to her, giving her and others tests for the coronavirus.
Another villager from the boat, 48-year-old Aye Ja Bi, said he had been wounded by a bomb dropped by a plane. His legs were hit by shrapnel and his ears were ringing, he said, but he was unable to travel to get help until Tuesday.
The airstrikes appeared to be retaliation for an attack by guerrillas under the command of the KNU on a government military outpost in which they claimed to have killed 10 soldiers and captured eight. Tuesday's KNU statement charged that the strikes had been planned before that.
About 2,500-3,000 refugees crossed into Thailand on Sunday, according to several humanitarian aid agencies who have long worked with the Karen.
They said on Monday, however, that Thai soldiers had begun to force people to return to Myanmar.
"They told them it was safe to go back even though it is not safe. They were afraid to go back but they had no choice," said a spokesperson for the Karen Peace Support Network, a group of Karen civil society organizations in Myanmar.
The army has restricted journalists' access to the area where the villagers crossed the border.
Myanmar's government has battled Karen guerrillas on and off for years — along with other ethnic minorities seeking more autonomy — but the airstrikes marked a major escalation of violence.
Political organizations representing the Karen and Kachin in northern Myanmar have issued statements in recent weeks warning the government against shooting protesters in their regions and threatening a response.
They were joined Tuesday by the Three Brothers Alliance, which represent the guerrilla armies of the Rakhine, Kokang and Ta-ang -- also known as Palaung -- minorities.
The alliance condemned the killing of protesters and said if it did not stop immediately, they would abandon a self-declared cease-fire and join with other groups to protect the people.
Their statement, like those of the Karen and Kachin, seemed to suggest that any military response by them would be in their home areas, not in the cities of central Myanmar where the protests and repression have been the strongest.
Supporters of the protest movement are hoping that the ethnic armed groups could help pressure the junta. Protest leaders in hiding say they have held talks, but there have been no commitments.
The United States on Monday suspended a trade deal with Myanmar, also known as Burma, until a democratic government is restored in the Southeast Asian country.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative said the country was immediately suspending "all U.S. engagement with Burma under the 2013 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement." Under the agreement, the two countries cooperated on trade and investment issues in an effort to integrate Myanmar into the global economy, a reward for the military's decision to allow a return to democracy — a transition that ended abruptly with last month's coup.
The announcement Monday doesn't stop trade between the two countries. Last week, the United States restricted American dealings with two giant Myanmar military holding companies that dominate much of that country's economy.
END/AP/UNB
Myanmar junta frees hundreds held for anti-coup protests
Hundreds of people imprisoned for demonstrating against last month’s coup in Myanmar were released Wednesday, a rare conciliatory gesture by the military that appeared aimed at placating the protest movement.
Witnesses outside Insein Prison in Yangon saw busloads of mostly young people, looking happy with some flashing the three-finger gesture of defiance adopted by protesters. State-run TV said a total of 628 were freed.
Also Wednesday, Thein Zaw, a journalist for The Associated Press who was arrested last month while covering an anti-coup protest, was released.
Also Read: 2 journalists detained as Myanmar junta clamps down on press
Myanmar’s security forces have cracked down violently on protests against a Feb. 1 coup that reversed a decade of progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country and ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that at least 275 people have been killed in connection with the crackdown. Thousands have also been arrested, and more than 2,000 remain in custody or have charges against them outstanding.
Wednesday’s release was an unusual overture by the military, which has so far seemed impervious to both internal pressure from protests and outside pressure from sanctions. In the face of an increasingly brutal crackdown, demonstrators tried a new tactic Wednesday that they dubbed a silence strike, calling on people to stay home and businesses to close for the day.
Also Read: UN: 38 died on deadliest day yet for Myanmar coup opposition
The prisoners released appear to be the hundreds of students detained in early March. One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity because she fears drawing attention from the authorities, said all those released were arrested on March 3. She said only 55 people detained in connection with the protests remained in the prison, and it is likely they will all face charges under a law that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.
The mass release came the same day that Thein Zaw was also freed. Thein Zaw told the AP that the judge in his case announced during a hearing that all charges against him were dropped because he was doing his job at the time of his arrest.
“I’m looking forward to meeting my family members,” he said. “I’m sorry for some colleagues who are still in prison.”
Meanwhile, messages online urged people to stay home Wednesday in protest — rather than flooding the streets as they have in the past — saying silence is “the loudest scream.” The messages explained the strike’s purpose was to honor the movement’s fallen heroes, to allow protesters to recharge and to contradict the junta’s claims that “everything is back to normal.”
The extent of the strike was difficult to gauge, but social media users posted photos from cities and towns showing streets empty of activity save for an occasional stray dog. Some protesters did go out to release red balloons with leaflets attached.
The new tactic was employed after an extended onslaught of violence from security forces.
Local media reported that a 7-year-old girl in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, was among the latest victims on Tuesday. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners included her in its list of fatalities.
“Khin Myo Chit was shot in the abdomen by a soldier while she sat in her father’s lap inside her home in Aung Pin Le ward,” the online news service Myanmar Now reported, quoting her sister, Aye Chan San.
The report said the shooting took place when soldiers were raiding homes in her family’s neighborhood. The sister said a soldier shot at their father when he denied that any people were hiding in their home, and hit the girl.
Aye Chan San said the soldiers then beat her 19-year-old brother with their rifle butts and took him away.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said tbe United Nations is “extremely disturbed over the killing by security forces of a 7-year-old child in her home.”
“There must be accountability for all the crimes and human rights violations that continue to be perpetrated in Myanmar,” he said.
Haq said the U,N. noted reports of the release of hundreds of demonstrators and remained concerned about ongoing arrests by the military, including of journalists and civil society leaders.
The U.N. called “for the release of all those arbitrarily detained, including President U Win Myint and State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” Haq said.
He said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.N. special envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener “will continue to mobilize international action for the restoration of democracy and human rights in Myanmar.”
Myanmar junta chokes information flow as protests intensify
Authorities in Myanmar arrested a spokesman for ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party as they intensify efforts to choke off the spread of information about growing protests against last month’s military takeover.
At least 138 peaceful protesters killed in Myanmar since Feb. 1: UN
The United Nations said at least 138 peaceful protesters have been killed in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 military coup, including at least 56 killed over the weekend.
Protests swell after Myanmar junta raises specter of force
Protesters gathered in Myanmar’s biggest city on Monday despite the ruling junta’s threat to use lethal force against people who join a general strike against the military’s takeover three weeks ago.
Myanmar anti-coup protesters honor woman shot dead by police
Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar's two largest cities paid tribute Saturday to a young woman who died a day earlier after being shot by police during a rally against the military takeover.
Police rampage targets striking railway workers in Myanmar
Demonstrators against Myanmar’s military takeover returned to the streets Thursday after a night of armed intimidation by security forces in the country’s second biggest city.
UN rights body trains spotlight on Myanmar following coup
The UN’s top human rights body held an urgent session on Friday to discuss the military coup in Myanmar, facing a call for the release of people “arbitrarily detained” — including civilian government leader Aung San Suu Kyi — and more action by UN officials to increase scrutiny of the country.
Myanmar junta cracks down on crowds defying protest ban
Police cracked down on demonstrators opposing Myanmar’s military coup, firing warning shots and shooting water cannons to disperse crowds that took to the streets again Tuesday in defiance of new protest bans.
Myanmar junta imposes curfew, meeting bans as protests swell
Myanmar’s new military rulers on Monday signaled their intention to crack down on opponents of their takeover, issuing decrees that effectively banned peaceful public protests in the country’s two biggest cities.