Day 67 since the illegal, cowardly and vile coup began. Yangon, which had suffered the most casualties among the peaceful protestors, have been relatively more quiet for some days now. The junta seems to think cracking the most populous and most internationally exposed city will win him the throne to the lands. He couldn’t be more wrong, for 1) He can never crack the spirit of Yangon residents and 2) People across the country will not become obedience to his will just because Yangon seems calm.
This is showcased by the ongoing protests across Yangon. Each protest in Yangon nowadays does not counted towards hundreds of thousands as in February, or even thousands as in early March, not since the bloody March where a protestor is reportedly killed every 80 minutes. But the protests, the defiance and the unyielding spirit is witnessed in villages, towns and cities across the country, and Yangon, which faced the heaviest casualties is no difference. People just become more agile in staging protests: in Yangon, by morphing city-wide protests where a million people march together on the main roads to local protests where neighbours and tens to a few hundreds local youths march together in defiance to the junta and against the coup.
And the nation that if people across the country will stand in line if extreme brutality is rain down on biggest cities and media focus areas such as Yangon and Mandalay couldn’t be more wrong. While Yangon is relatively more quiet compared to two weeks ago, the protests continue across the country. The junta responded with the use of snipers, machine-guns, grenades and other weapons of war. The focus of today is the city of Kalay and Taze in Sagaing Region, where protestors got attacked by military thugs. Death toll in Kalay mounts to 29 according to counts today, but the protests continue. Another epicenter of fatal crackdowns by junta’s forces is in Taze and death toll mounts to eight. Many other places across the country are reportedly staging protests as well.
Another aspect is the creative ways of staging protests, since people cannot face automatic assault weapons. We have seen the garbage protests, silent protests and broken-down car protests in past two months; today sees another day of such creative strikes in the form of “Marching Shoes Strike”. Today people across the country, walk to the streets and left their shoes, filled with flowers, behind in honour of fallen heroes during current struggle for democracy and to show the junta and his forces that they are not wanted and will be kicked out.
Of course, the junta is busy not just cracking down protestors, his forces are busy expanding military operations in ethnic armed organizations (EAOs)-controlled areas, despite their announcement of unilateral one month ceasefire for April, and aggression against Karen National Union (KNU) forces continues today, this time again in Kawkareik township and next to Thai border. Despite the reports are yet to clarify on the details, we stand by with our Karen brethren for the eradication of military dictatorship and aggression of Tatmataw.
Speaking of aggression of Tatmataw, CRPH today announced there are 272,209 testimonies where junta’s forces applied brutal acts against the general populace in a systematic manner, and there will be submitted to Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM).
In other news, we saw news reporters of junta’s forces confiscated PSI satellites receiver items in Mon State. The junta has been trying its best to keep the people in the dark with internet shutdown, and now with satellite TVs. Rumour about all kinds of internet shutdown from April 10 to 20 is widely circulated in our social media as well.
Whether protests and civil disobedience movements, armed struggles or CRPH, all of these are among the combined forces to remove military dictatorship and to build a federal democratic nation we all dream of. We wish these efforts well and pledge our support. We will prevail in this fight.
