Mandalay (Myanmar): Myanmar’s security forces shot dead at least 10 people Thursday protesting the military’s coup Thursday. The recent killings spurned a UN Security Council appeal to stop using lethal force as an independent UN expert cited growing evidence of crimes against humanity.
The military also lodged a new allegation against the deposed government leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It alleged that in 2017-18 she was illegally given USD 600,000 and gold bars worth slightly less by a political ally. She and President Win Myint have been detained on less serious allegations and the new accusation was clearly aimed at discrediting Suu Kyi and perhaps charging her with a serious crime.
Military spokesman Brig Gen Zaw Min Tun said at a news conference in the capital that former Yangon Division Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein had admitted giving the money and gold to Suu Kyi, but presented no evidence.
Myanmar has been roiled by protests, strikes and other acts of civil disobedience since the coup toppled Suu Kyi’s government February 1 just as it was to start its second term. The takeover reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian nation after five decades of military rule.
Local press reports and posts on social media Thursday said there were six deaths in Myaing, a town in the central Magway Region, and one each in Yangon,1 Mandalay, Bago and Taungoo. In many cases, photos of what were said to be the bodies of the dead were posted online.
Security forces have attacked previous protests with live ammunition as well, leading to the deaths of at least 60 people. They have also employed tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and stun grenades. Many demonstrators have been brutally beaten.
Also read: Myanmar: UN calls for release of ‘trapped’ protesters
The UN Security Council unanimously called Thursday for reversing the coup. It strongly condemned the violence against peaceful protesters. It also called for ‘utmost restraint’ by the military.
An independent UN rights expert focusing on Myanmar told Thursday the UN-backed Human Rights Council Thursday that violence against protesters and even ‘people sitting peacefully in their homes’ was rising. He said the junta was detaining dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people every day.
Human rights group Amnesty International issued Thursday a report. It said Myanmar’s military ‘is using increasingly lethal tactics and weapons normally seen on the battlefield against peaceful protesters and bystanders across the country’.
The London-based group said its examination of more than 50 videos from the crackdown confirmed that ‘security forces appear to be implementing planned, systematic strategies including the ramped-up use of lethal force. Many of the killings documented amount to extrajudicial executions’.
“These are not the actions of overwhelmed, individual officers making poor decisions. These are unrepentant commanders already implicated in crimes against humanity, deploying their troops and murderous methods in the open,” Joanne Mariner, director of crisis response Amnesty International, said in a statement.
As widespread street protests against the coup continue, the junta is facing a new challenge from Myanmar’s the guerrilla forces. These forces until recently had limited themselves to verbal denunciations of last month’ coup.
Reports from Kachin, the northernmost state, said guerrilla forces from the Kachin ethnic minority attacked a government base Thursday and were in turn attacked. The armed wing of the Kachin political movement is the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA.