They threatened to shoot in the back and in the head and were not bluffing. The Burmese Military Junta has definitively removed its mask and, without an iota of modesty, represses the population with blood and fire. In the bloodiest day since the coup on February 1 , more than a hundred pro-democracy protesters died on Saturday from repressive fire.
The massacre of civilians has coincided with the celebration of Armed Forces Day , led by Min Aung Hlaing. The count of people killed during the two months of repression exceeds 400. While the coup leader presided over the military parade in Naipiyidó, his henchmen fired at the civilian population in forty cities of various regions and states, with particular virulence in the capital. , Rangoon.
The bloody day, already described as the “day of disgrace” , has provoked the unanimous condemnation of the international community. Oblivious to what was happening in the streets, the military command promised elections in his speech, with no other details than his intention to work for “democracy.”
The military seized power at the beginning of February with the excuse of an alleged electoral fraud in the November elections, in which the party of the deposed leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, was destroyed . The military junta has detained more than 3,000 people in two months, including Suu Kyi, held incommunicado and charged with numerous charges.
Determined to defy the threat of live fire, protesters who took to the streets have posted chilling scenes on social media . This is the case of point-blank shots at a motorcycle in a place where there were no protests and the kidnapping of one of its occupants or of the father who, disconsolate, laments the “death of his son whom he was carrying in his arms in the car. Witnesses They report that the military sometimes took the dead bodies away.
“They are killing us like birds”
“They are killing us like birds or chickens , even in our homes,” Burmese Thu Ya Zaw told the Reuters news agency in the town of Myingyan. “But we will continue protesting,” he added defiantly.
As happened in other days, the presence of minors and young people among the fatalities once again stands out; specifically, yesterday a 13-year-old girl and a 21-year-old young man, identified as Chit Bo Nyein, captain of an under-21 team who was shot while helping at his family’s teahouse.
STRINGER
The Burmese Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners has found that soldiers take advantage of the night to carry out raids in which they shoot to kill civilians , while warning that the situation is scandalously deteriorating in the Asian country with more arrests , torture and looting. In this context, repression, arrests and censorship are turning journalists , many of whom have fled or are already living in hiding, into a deadly exercise.
On Friday, a group of professors from the University of Oslo nominated the Civil Disobedience Movement , the civil initiative against the Burmese junta, for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize . They could not nominate him for this year’s edition as the deadline was closed on January 31.
“The time has come for an award for the popular movement that is on the front lines for democracy and peace and that shows non-violent opposition against the brutal military junta,” said Kristian Stokke, a professor at the Institute of Sociology at that university and promoter of the initiative.
