Workplaces in Myanmar were closed on Monday, part of a general strike aimed at strangling the power of military rulers who overthrew an elected government last month. But if manufacturing and commerce were stopped, anger at the military’s brutality increased even more, despite the increased presence of security forces in urban centers and a tougher crackdown on the press.
At least two participants in a mass protest movement were shot dead on Monday in Myitkyina, a city in northern Myanmar, where Roman Catholic nuns knelt to plead with soldiers to stop the killing. Another protester was shot in the abdomen in Pyapon, a city not far from Yangon, the commercial capital of Myanmar. The deaths were reported by doctors and relatives.
And in Yangon, hundreds of people were trapped in a security cordon on Monday night, fearing imprisonment or worse. “Help,” wrote one of the people who said he was under arrest. “Military troops blocked all exits.”
More than 60 people have been killed since a February 1 coup ousted Myanmar’s civilian leaders, returning the country to full military rule. About 1,800 other people were arrested, according to a local group that monitors political prisoners.
On Monday night, restrictions became even stricter when state television, which is now controlled by the military, announced that licenses were revoked for five independent media organizations, a severe blow to what had been the vibrant free press from the country. Dozens of reporters have been detained since the coup. Withdrawing media licenses can now make your own reporting illegal.
At a time when a military junta totally ruled Myanmar for nearly five decades, censorship committees regularly withdrew news from the country’s newspapers, letting rumors flourish amid the information blackout.
On Sunday, security forces raided universities, hospital complexes and Buddhist pagoda complexes, where they established makeshift operations centers.
“It is totally unacceptable to allow the military to base themselves in the hospital,” said Dr. Kyaw Swar, medical officer at Yangon General Hospital, where soldiers set up camp. “Hospitals are not the place for them. They were impudent. But they have weapons. “
In the city of Mandalay, in central Myanmar, military trucks invaded university campuses, including Mandalay Technological University, where a convoy of four vehicles arrived amid tear gas and rubber bullets, according to witnesses.
Ko Kyaw Thu, a security guard at Mandalay Technological University, suffered a rubber bullet wound below his left eye, which required surgery.
“They are terrorists,” he said of the military. “I think they are trying to prepare for a brutal war against the people.”
At the Mahamuni Buddha Temple in Mandalay, U Kesara Viwunsa, the abbot, said the soldiers occupied the pagoda for a month.
“Nobody comes to worship here anymore because people are afraid of them,” he said.
Global New Light of Myanmar, a state-owned newspaper that acts as a speaker for military rulers, said on Monday that such spaces were being occupied because the public had requested that Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, “Control public universities and hospitals and act effectively for the benefit of the population”.
The publication also warned that even working “indirectly” with a group of lawmakers who have configured themselves as a kind of government in exile would be considered a crime.
For days, people in Myanmar have been discussing “R2P”, an abbreviation for the United Nations’ responsibility to protect “policy that allows the international community to intervene” if peaceful means are inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. ”
The principle was used to help justify foreign military intervention in Libya in 2011 and came after the United Nations admitted that it failed to prevent atrocities from being committed in the Balkans and Rwanda. In Myanmar, the hashtag # R2P became a trend on Twitter and people wrote giant signs in the streets asking foreign military personnel to invade.
The international community has verbally condemned the takeover of the Tatmadaw, with some countries tightening sanctions on military officials and military companies. But Myanmar’s most important foreign investors, such as Singapore and China, have not taken significant steps to financially punish the military.
When the generals seized power last month, they announced that they were compelled to act because of what they called mass electoral fraud in last November’s elections, which were resoundingly won by the National League for Democracy. The generals said they would hold elections in a year. But the timeline for future research has already changed for one to two years, according to pronouncements in the state media.
The last time the military overturned the results of an election in 1990, it took a quarter of a century for full and fair general elections to be held again.