translated from Spanish: Myanmar police hardens crackdown on protests

In some areas, security forces seemed more aggressive when it came to using force and detaining, with more civilian-clad agents than before. Photos posted on social media showed that residents of at least two cities, Yangon and Monywa, resisted erecting makeshift street barricades to try to hinder the advance by police. At the international level, the Myanmar crisis took a dramatic turn friday when, during a special session of the General Assembly, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations declared his allegiance to the deposed civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and called on the world to press the Army to give up power. Authorities held arrests in Yangon and Mandalay, the two largest cities in the country where protesters have taken to the streets daily to peacefully demand the restoration of the Suu Kyi government, whose National League for Democracy won by a large majority in the November elections. The police are becoming more stringent in the implementation of a board order that prevents the concentrations of five or more people. Many other cities and towns have also recorded large protests against military uprising. In Dawei, in the southeast of the country, and in Monywa, 135 kilometers (85 miles) northwest of Mandalay, police used force against the mavericks. Both cities, which have fewer than 200,000 inhabitants, have been the scenarios of large mobilizations. Unconfirmed reports circulated on social media about the death of a protester by gunfire in Monywa. The information could not be independently contrasted but seemed credible, with photographs and identification of the victim, although it was subsequently indicated by the networks that the woman had not died. Reports from Monywa also spoke of dozens of people arrested. The coup d’eer reverted years of slow progress towards democracy after five decades of military rule. Suu Kyi’s party should have taken office for a second five-year term, but the military prevented Parliament from opening and arrested it, along with President Win Myint and other high-ranking officials in his government. At the General Assembly in New York, Myanmar Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun stated in an emotional address to the other delegates representing the “people-elected civilian government (of Suu Kyi)” and said it supported the fight against the military regime. MRTV, a state-operated Myanmar television channel, aired an announcement Saturday that the Foreign Ministry noted that Kyaw Moe Tun has been dismissed from office by abusing his power and not behaving properly by not complying with government instructions and betraying him. Kyaw Moe Tun also urged all countries to issue strong declarations of condemnation and refused to recognize the military regime. The ambassador also called for stronger international measures to curb security forces violence against peaceful protesters. Moe Tun received applause from many diplomats from the 193 countries that make up the agency and praise from other social media compatriots, who described him as a hero. The ambassador greeted with all three fingers of one hand aloft, a gesture adopted by the civil disobedience movement, at the end of a speech in which he spoke in Burmese. In Yangon, police began making arrests early Saturday at the intersection of the Hledan Center, which has become the meeting point for protesters who then disperse throughout other parts of the city. Agents did the same in residential neighborhoods. Security forces also tried to prevent protests in Mandalay, where checks were established at several key crossings and the areas where protests are usually held were full of uniforms.As is the case regularly, Buddhist monks stood out at Saturday’s march in Mandalay, giving moral authority to the civil disobedience movement.Mandalay has been the scene of several violent confrontations and at least four of the eight confirmed deaths linked to the protests, according to the Political Prisoner Aid Association, an independent group. On Friday, at least three people were injured, two of them from the impact of rubber bullets on the chest and another who appeared to have a gunshot wound to one leg. According to the association, as of Friday 771 people had been arrested, charged or sentenced at some point in connection with the military uprising, and 689 are detained or sought by the authorities. The board indicated that it assumed the because last year’s elections were riddled with irregularities. The pre-coup electoral commission had rejected allegations of widespread fraud. The military ceased the members of the agency and appointed others, who on Friday annulled the results of the elections.



Original source in Spanish

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