[News] ‘We’re not brainwashed’: a week of turmoil in Myanmar

[Stendhal 𐌕]

Protests have spread across country since military coup, as citizens resist return to dictatorship.

 

On Friday evening, after darkness fell, the sound of car horns and the clanging of pots and pans and metal railings echoed around the compact grid of central Yangon. It was the fourth consecutive night that people had gathered on their balconies to loudly voice their fury at the military junta now running Myanmar.

 

It was Monday morning when the public had awoken to find that Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party had won a landslide election in November, had been detained, and that the army had seized all legislative, judicial and executive powers.

 

The country – which spent five decades under military rule before it began transitioning to democracy in 2011 – was once again under direct control of the army.

 

Despite the army’s history of using deadly violence against demonstrators, protests have sprung up, and public rage is mounting.

 

In Yangon on Thursday, small groups of activists played a cat-and-mouse game with police, holding impromptu protests before racing away to avoid being arrested. At Sule Pagoda a truck slowly released a cloud of red balloons into the sky – the colour of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party – to signal their loyalty to the ousted leader, who is now under house arrest with other senior officials.

 

Doctors and nurses from Universities hospital in Yangon hold up placards as they participate in a civil disobedience campaign against the military coup.

 

 

Drivers, meanwhile, threw flyers disparaging the army’s commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, from their car windows. On Friday, hundreds of students gathered at Dagon University on the outskirts of the capital, with smaller gatherings taking place elsewhere.

 

The military has “beaten down” the people and destroyed their dreams, said one student, who demonstrated outside Yangon University. He asked to remain anonymous because he feared being targeted. “I hope our generation will be the last to experience military rule,” he said.

 

A civil disobedience campaign has gained pace over recent days, with medics from dozens of hospitals refusing to work, as well as many teachers, students and youth groups. In photographs shared online, protesters wore red ribbons to show support for Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years in detention campaigning against military rule. Though internationally she has been condemned for her treatment of the Rohingya, at home she is considered by many to be a symbol of democracy. At protests they raise their hands in a three-finger salute, an anti-military gesture used by pro-democracy demonstrators in neighbouring Thailand.

 

Yangon University Teachers’ Association members protest against the military coup by wearing red ribbons and raising three-fingered salutes.

 

“I don’t want to look back some day and think that things did not change because I didn’t help bring change,” said a student in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state. The people had been robbed by the military, he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi aide arrested as Myanmar military seeks to quash unrest

 

The authorities have attempted to halt any dissent, and fear of a violent response has deterred people from gathering for mass street protests. In Mandalay, the city’s police chief said protesters would be shot with rubber bullets, teargas would be used, and medical staff protesting outside hospitals would be arrested, according to police documents. About 30 people were reportedly arrested for taking part in pot-banging protests over recent evenings.

 

Internet service providers were also ordered to block Facebook, the main mode of communication in Myanmar. To get around the restrictions, residents rushed to download virtual private networks – which the junta later said it also would ban – and turned to Twitter to share information.

 

“People are more educated now and more willing to speak out against the military,” said Tun, 19. “We lived in fear, but we have had some years without it. We know our rights and we aren’t brainwashed any more.”

 

Myanmar rings with pots and pans against military coup.

 

The army has justified its takeover by accusing Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) of widespread fraud in November’s election, but has not provided credible evidence to prove this. The NLD won by a huge margin, taking 396 out of 476 seats, an even stronger performance than in 2015 when the country held its first free vote in decades. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party suffered a humiliating defeat, taking just 33 seats.

 

The military was already hugely powerful before the coup, prompting some to question why Min Aung Hlaing decided to seize power. Under the constitution it maintains control of key ministries and is guaranteed a quarter of parliamentary seats.

 

“This is clearly not in the long-term interests of the country or the Tatmadaw [armed forces],” said Richard Horsey, an independent political analyst based in Myanmar.

 

A portrait of the army chief Min Aung Hlaing is burned.

 

However, Min Aung Hlaing has made no secret of his desire to one day be president, and within the military there has long been resentment over the power-sharing arrangement. The recent election brought such grievances to a head, said Horsey. “I think there’s a lot of people in officer corps who genuinely believe the election was not free and fair,” he said. While the election process was not without flaws, there is no evidence to suggest the large-scale fraud that has been alleged.

 

Speculation over Min Aung Hlaing’s ambitions matters little to Myae, 60, who wants anything but a return to power exercised through threats and violence.

 

Roads, transport and electricity had improved in the last nine years, she said, unlike before 2011 when power was provided to different parts of Yangon on a rotary system. “The buses were cramped, run-down and made me feel like livestock en route to the slaughterhouse,” she said.

 

The tilt towards democracy had helped her feel valued, she said, because the elected government “treats us more like human beings … without the need for stealth and suspicion”.

 

Minority groups are especially fearful. Yasmin Ullah, a Rohingya rights activist, said her community would be even more vulnerable to abuses. Hundreds of thousands remain stuck in camps in Rakhine, where they are denied freedom of movement and access to education or healthcare.

 

“It’s much easier now for the military to squeeze people a lot harder than they have in the past because there is not even a perception of democracy any more,” she said, calling for the international community to support human rights defenders in the country, who are especially exposed.

 

So far 147 people have been arrested, mostly activists and politicians.

 

Despite such crackdowns, the nightly ritual of the clanging of pots and pans has been getting louder and more drawn out. A revolutionary song that was an anthem for the millions of people who opposed the military in 1988 is also being sung by many. For Tun, 56, who remembers the violence that was used by the military at that time, the peaceful protest is a sign of hope. “These moments in the nights make me believe there are so many more like me who want to be free from military rule,” he said.