Until Thursday, Myaing, a small town in central Myanmar, was best known for its production of thanaka, a bark that is ground for use as a refreshing cosmetic.
But in the late morning of March 11, the city, which can be traversed in 10 minutes, has become synonymous with the brutality of the military who took power last month. The rain-soaked streets of Myaing were stained with blood when police fired on a group of unarmed civilians, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 20, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
U Myint Zaw Win was among the crowd that spread with the blasts of live ammunition late in the morning, outside the Myaing police station. When he looked back, he saw a body with half its head shattered, on a street that he had walked all his life. He did not know whose body it was, but he said a bricklayer and a bus driver were among the dead.
“They shot people like birds,” Myint Zaw Win said of the policemen, some of whom he said he knew personally because Myaing is a small town where almost everyone knows each other.
“How can they change from nonviolent policemen to monsters?” he added. “The world is upside down.”
Mr. Myint Zaw Win’s account of the carnage was corroborated by two other witnesses.
More than 70 people in Myanmar have been killed by security forces since the army staged the February 1 coup, overthrowing a civilian leadership and returning the country to the nightmare of a complete military regime.
Although most of the deaths occurred in large cities like Yangon and Mandalay, security forces shot and killed people in at least 17 different cities across the country: Taungdwingyi, Myingyan, Salin, Kalay, Htee Lin and Pyapon, among others .
After analyzing more than 50 videos of such murders, Amnesty International concluded in a report published on Thursday that security forces were using battlefield weaponry against protesters. In some cases, commanders ordered extrajudicial executions, Amnesty International said, while in other cases the bullets were fired indiscriminately.
The Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, has killed and persecuted citizens of the country for decades. The worst attacks have been reserved for ethnic minorities, such as Muslim Rohingya, whose persecution is being tried as genocide in international courts.
“These are not the actions of overworked, individual officers making the wrong decisions,” said Joanne Mariner, Amnesty International’s director of crisis response, in a statement. “These are unrepentant commanders already implicated in crimes against humanity, openly detaching their troops and murderous methods.”
The death drum beat in Myanmar in recent weeks has shocked a population accustomed to massacres by the military. On Thursday, three people were shot dead in the cities of Yangon, Mandalay and Bago. Another person who had been shot on March 3 in the town of Myinchan also succumbed to his injuries on Thursday.
Before the shooting turned Myaing’s center into a battlefield on Thursday, residents gathered daily, wearing helmets and motorcycle helmets, to march against the military’s seizure of power last month. Its residents were as determined as those of the big cities to speak out against the coup, during which dozens of elected politicians, including civil leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, were arrested.
On Thursday, a military spokesman accused Aung San Suu Kyi of illegally receiving 25 pounds of gold and about $ 600,000. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi leads the National League for Democracy, which won the last two elections through landslides. She has been charged with several other crimes that could result in her imprisonment for years, including the obscure offense of owning foreign walkie-talkies without proper import licenses.
Two days after the coup, Myaing residents began to march through its semi-paved streets, demanding that Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected officials return to office. They have continued every day since then. On Thursday, at least two young men from a local monastery were arrested and a crowd gathered at the police station to find out why. They sat in silent protest.
There was no warning that live ammunition was coming, witnesses said. The police declined to comment.
At the same time, in Yangon, the country’s largest city, security forces fired on a crowd in the North Dagon district, hitting Ko Chit Min Thu, a 25-year-old collector of recycled materials, in the head. He died almost immediately, said his relatives and other protesters.
Concerned that security forces would seize the body – as it did in recent days and in Mandalay on Thursday – other protesters carried Chit Min Thu away from the shooting range.
In the early afternoon, his body was back home with the mourners gathered around. A bandage obscured his fatal head wound. His widow, Ma Aye Chan Myint, was thrilled, with her two-year-old son at her side. She is pregnant in the first trimester.
“Why didn’t they just shoot them in the legs, why did they shoot them in the head?” she asked. There was no answer.
Ms. Aye Chan Myint reached out to touch the feet and face of her husband, who protested every day in the hope that a wave of civilian force could somehow take the military out of power.
“You said I should be proud,” she said to her husband’s body. “I am proud of you, my love.”