News (1)
Myingan ‘like a war zone’ as regime troops destroy protest stronghold, locals say
Source : Myanmar Now
The regime’s armed forces crushed an anti-coup stronghold in the Mandalay Region town of Myingyan on Sunday in an afternoon attack.
The Lanmadaw protest base in the town’s sixth ward was a primary defence area from which civilians had been using homemade guns, such as hunting rifles, to resist attacks by regime troops.
Some 200 members of the armed forces assaulted the stronghold from late afternoon until 10pm, according to locals.
An estimated six people, including a 13-year-old boy, were arrested after the attacks, a resident said.
Local sources said that there were casualties on the side of the armed forces, but that no civilians had died in the assault. Myanmar Now was unable to confirm these details at the time of reporting.
A Myingan local told Myanmar Now that troops were “shooting at every person they saw… like in a war zone.”
Residents rebuilt the Lanmadaw stronghold before dawn on Monday, but it was destroyed by the troops again at around 10am.
Prior to the attack on Lanmadaw on Sunday, soldiers and police also indiscriminately shot at people near Myingan’s municipal market. At least one man was injured and in critical condition after being shot in the head, according to local sources.
He was a worker in a rice shop, and was shot by troops as he tried to close the shop’s doors as they passed by the area.
At around 4pm on Sunday, there was an explosion in front of the KBZ Bank branch in the town but no one was reported as injured. The cause of the blast is unknown.
According to local relief organisations, at least 23 people have been killed in Myingyan by the military and police in crackdowns on demonstrations since the February 1 coup.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group that has been monitoring the regime’s violence, reported that more than 730 people have been killed nationwide during the same period.
Hundreds of people fled their homes on Sunday as fighting intensified between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the junta’s armed forces in Hpakant township.
“They’ve used heavy artillery. The fighting is still going on now, we can still hear the sound of heavy artillery,” a resident told Myanmar Now on Monday afternoon.
The clashes are taking place around the village of Kansee and residents have taken shelter in religious buildings.
“That place was where the KIA’s Battalion 6 was stationed before 2011,” the resident added. “The army captured the base in a past fight and now the KIA is fighting back.”
There have been no reports of civilian casualties, but communications in the area have also been disrupted, he said.
During Sunday’s clash, the KIA attacked a Myanmar military convoy with a landmine.
KIA information officer Colonel Naw Bu confirmed the clashes in Hpakant township and added that there was also fighting near the town of Hopin.
“Fighting broke out in the area around our Brigade 8 too,” he said. “The military council’s armed forces mounted airstrikes.” Brigade 8 is based to the east of Hopin.
Earlier this month the military launched a massive offensive in a bid to reclaim the strategically important Alaw Bum base, near the Chinese border.
The KIA has held onto the hill station, reportedly wiping out an entire Tatmadaw battalionin the process.
Fighting has since died down in the area, but Colonel Naw Bu said the junta has replenished its forces “in order to launch a military offensive” again.
After years of relative peace in Kachin, the KIA has launched numerous offensives in recent weeks in the wake of the military’s February 1 coup.
News (3)
Myanmar regime continues to arrest doctors and medics
Source : The Irrawaddy
In its sweeping attempt to crack down on the country’s striking medics, the Myanmar military regime has opened lawsuits against 139 doctors under incitement laws in less than a week and is trying to arrest them for their refusal to work under its rule.
The junta’s latest attack on the country’s striking medics began on Tuesday with the announcement of lawsuits against 19 doctors, including a director of the Health Ministry, for their encouragement of other government workers to join the Civil Disobedient Movement (CDM) while supporting the country’s shadow government formed by deposed lawmakers.
Since then, the regime’s “charge list against doctors” had swelled to 139 as of Monday and is updated on a daily basis. The regime said there will be more to come. On the list so far are medical superintendents, specialists and assistant doctors who have been on strike at government hospitals in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay as well as provincial towns across the country.
According to the regime’s daily announcement, the doctors have been charged under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code. It said, “Attempts to arrest those who have been charged are now under way.”
If arrested and found guilty, each doctor faces three years’ imprisonment.
While the charges and efforts to arrest them pose a threat to the doctors on the list, they are also a testament to how hard the regime has been hit by the medics’ CDM.
Following the coup on Feb. 1, many doctors, nurses and others in the country’s health sector initiated the CDM. They left the hospitals to take to the streets to condemn the takeover, demanded that the regime release the country’s detained leaders—President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—and denounced military rule.
Inspired by their counterparts in the country’s health sector, government staff from other ministries left their desks to join the CDM. Even major private banks have found it hard to operate as their staffs have joined the movement.
Doctors on strike told The Irrawaddy that the nationwide movement initiated and motivated by the healthcare sector has become a powerful weapon, making it impossible for the regime to govern the country.
Due to the movement, the regime has not received any income to run the machinery of the country, as many revenue-collection offices are closed and people have stopped paying taxes to the junta as part of the CDM.
“The junta has been badly hit by the movement. They can’t function any more, as all income has been stopped, while it has to pay its staff and other bills,” said a surgeon at a Yangon hospital.
He added, “The CDM is a kind of rope tying up the junta so that it cannot move. But, we can’t depend only on the movement. We need other things to kill [the junta],” the surgeon said.
The medics’ contribution to the CDM alone has had a real impact. In late February, coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing bemoaned that nearly one-third of Myanmar’s 1,262 public hospitals had not functioned for nearly three weeks.
He also accused the doctors and nurses on strike of being “unethical” and threatened to “take action” against them if they did not go back to work soon.
Caught off guard by the medics’ movement, the regime hastily opened their military hospitals to the public and sent their medical corps to local hospitals to fill the vacuum. They said they have treated more than 100,000 outpatients and nearly 5,000 serious cases, while delivering more than 9,200 babies from Feb. 5 to April 18. However, they still haven’t disclosed the daily patient numbers at their hospitals or how many medics in uniforms have been deployed at how many public hospitals across the country.
Despite the above figures, the senior general’s warning in February and his latest legal campaign under Section 505(a) suggest the medics in uniform may not be able to cope with the overwhelming need for public healthcare, probably due to their limited facilities and human resources.
Doctors in the movement also said that the regime’s ability to maintain the healthcare system is one of the main ways in which its governing of the country will be judged, and crucial to its public image.
“But the junta has been unable to re-establish those sectors due to the CDM of healthcare workers and others,” said a medic who is participating in the CDM in Mandalay.
That is one of the reasons that striking medical doctors are being targeted, he said.
In a recent press conference, regime spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun accused the medics on strike of killing people in cold blood by being absent from hospitals when patients were in need.
He may have turned a blind eye to one important fact, however.
Many doctors supporting the CDM have been providing free treatment for patients whose medical records are held with government hospitals at private and free clinics, despite ongoing harassment from the regime.
Also, many doctors and healthcare workers joining the CDM have set up charity clinics for those needing emergency treatment, and have gone undercover to treat patients wounded during the crackdowns on anti-regime protests.
Meanwhile, mobile medical teams and secret medical clinics including those set up by social organizations to provide medical treatment to people—including wounded anti-regime protesters—have been increasingly targeted with violence and arrests.
On April 5, junta forces raided a charity clinic in Sanchaung Township of Yangon and arrested four volunteer medical staff—Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo, Dr. Soe San Phyo, Dr. Chan Myae Zaw and Ma Khin Sus Tun—along with five other volunteers.
On April 2, Dr. Nay Myo, a physician providing free medical treatment, was also arrested by plainclothes police in Bago Region after leaving his clinic.
Over the past two months, at least six striking medics, including some providing free treatments to patients, were arrested by junta forces.
“They [regime] will never win, no matter how much more they torture, suppress or arrest striking doctors and civil staff. Because the main ambition, to reject the regime totally, is firmly based in the hearts of those doctors and civil staff taking part in the CDM,” said the doctor in Mandalay.
Source : Myanmar Now
Myanmar’s military junta released nine imprisoned activists on Saturday as part of a general amnesty to mark start of the country’s traditional Buddhist New Year.
The nine activists, who were among 23,184 prisoners freed under the amnesty, were all due to be released in the coming months, according to observers.
Three of those freed on Saturday are members of Peacock Generation, a poetry troupe that was accused of undermining the military with a satirical performance during Thingyan, or the Myanmar New Year, two years ago.
Zeya Lwin, Paing Ye Thu and Paing Phyo Min were all found guilty in 2019 of violating section 505a of the Penal Code and section 66d of the Telecommunications Act.
They were each given sentences ranging from five and a half to six and a half years in prison.
However, under a commutation granted before the February 1 coup, their sentences were shortened and were due to end in the near future, according to a member of the troupe.
“The releases don’t mean that the junta cares about them. They were included in the list because they were going to be released soon, anyway,” said the Peacock Generation member, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Three other members of the troupe who were charged at the same time had been released before the military takeover two and a half months ago.
Meanwhile, the troupe reported that four more of its members were detained on Saturday morning.
Kyaw Min Tun, Shwe Yupa Lin, Soe Htet Oo and Min Htet Lin were on their way to an anti-coup rally when they were taken into custody, a troupe member told Myanmar Now.
No further details about their arrest were available at the time of reporting.
The other six activists released on Saturday are members of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) who were imprisoned late last year for taking part in protests against the war in Rakhine state.
Nyi Nyi Min Htet Wai, Thet Maung Maung, Myo Chit Zaw, Thuta Myi Nyi, Aung Khaing Min and Hla Tun Aung were released from Mandalay’s Obo prison, where they were serving sentences for allegedly defaming the military.
They had each been given more than a year in prison under sections 505a and 505b of the Penal Code for accusing the military of committing human rights abuses in the conflict.
All six were within months of completing their sentences. At least four other ABFSU members charged in connection with the anti-war campaign remain behind bars.
The prisoner releases come a day after lawmakers from Myanmar’s ousted civilian government announced the formation of a “national unity government” as part of an effort to consolidate resistance to the junta.
The regime has killed at least 700 civilians and detained more than 3,000 others since seizing power, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
No comments:
Post a Comment