More than 25,000 people arrested in military crackdown on dissent: report (documents)
Yangon, Myanmar:
Myanmar’s top general said on Wednesday that Myanmar’s military would do “whatever it takes” to suppress opposition to its rule, after the junta extended a state of emergency and further delayed elections.
The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since a February 2021 coup that ended a decade of democratic experiments and triggered mass protests and a crackdown on dissent.
Three years on, the junta is struggling to suppress widespread armed opposition, and recently an alliance of ethnic armed groups has suffered a series of stunning losses.
Junta Chairman Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech carried by state broadcaster MRTV that the military would “make every effort to restore stability to the country.”
Hours earlier, the Defense and Security Council agreed to extend for another six months the state of emergency declared when the government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown.
The junta said in a statement that the state of emergency needed to be extended to “continue the fight against terrorists.”
The military seized power after raising unsubstantiated claims of fraud in a 2020 election that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.
It has since extended the state of emergency several times and delayed promised elections.
Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution requires authorities to hold new elections within six months after the state of emergency is lifted, and the junta says the constitution remains valid.
The report said that a committee formed by the junta also discussed “preparations for holding multi-party elections” at a meeting in the military-built capital Naypyitaw, but did not disclose details.
reeling
The junta is reeling from a series of battlefield setbacks, and military supporters have made rare public criticism of its leadership in recent days.
In late October, an alliance of ethnic minority militants launched a surprise offensive in northern Shan State, seizing large swaths of territory and controlling lucrative trading centers on the Chinese border.
A China-brokered peace deal this month halted fighting in the north, but the alliance has largely maintained recent gains and conflict continues elsewhere.
The setbacks have also prompted new pro-democracy groups to renew attacks on the military elsewhere in the country.
Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech broadcast late Wednesday that clashes with ethnic armed groups were continuing, without giving details.
He said the junta would provide more resources to local militias that support its rule.
David Mathieson, an independent Myanmar analyst, said the extension of the state of emergency was “an entirely expected extension for a shaky regime.”
Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group said: “The regime’s other option is to end the emergency and hold elections, but it is clearly not ready to do so and its weak controls on security will make it extremely difficult to difficulty.”
confusion
After the government was deposed, Suu Kyi, 78, was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison in a series of trials that rights groups blasted as a sham.
The escalating conflict has devastated the Southeast Asian country’s economy.
Analysts say the effectiveness of the counter-coup “People’s Defense Forces” that emerged to overthrow the coup has surprised the junta and dragged the military into a bloody quagmire.
Opponents and human rights groups say junta groups have burned villages, carried out extrajudicial killings and used airstrikes and shelling to punish communities that oppose its rule.
Diplomatic efforts led by the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional grouping to end the conflict have made no progress.
The military’s crackdown on dissent has resulted in more than 4,400 deaths and more than 25,000 arrests, according to local monitoring groups.
According to the United Nations, more than 2 million people have been displaced by violence since the coup.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
