now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. it seems myanmar�*s military is prepared to kill as many pro—democracy protesters as it takes to safeguard its grip on power. so, what options do the opponents of the coup have left? well, my guest is dr sasa, representative of the committee to the united nations. why has myanmar�*s democratic transition gone so tragically wrong? dr sasa, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much for having me, stephen. it's a pleasure to have you on the show. i cannot say where you are because i know you want to keep your location secret, but it is clear that you escaped from myanmar in the hours and days after the february 1st coup. and as i understand it, you were with aung san suu kyi in the hours before the coup. so can you tell me exactly what happened to you? it was the 1st of february that the military coup take — stolen democracy from the people of myanmar. so there was not only me, there was members of parliament who were elected by the people of myanmar for the people of myanmar, there's the president, the vice president, our state councillor, aung san suu kyi. we all are in the city called naypyidaw. so that day, when we wake up, we found our phones are dead. all the signals are down. television was dead. and all we saw was the military men with the guns, the smoking guns — guns pointing at all the elected members of parliament. and then we found that it was being taken by guns — the will of the people of myanmar was once again silenced by smoking guns. and i was told by top advisors to leave as soon as possible so that i can speak on behalf of the parliament and our leaders, who are being illegally detained. and i dress as taxidriver. it took me three days and three nights in the freezing cold. and i thought i will be also arrested on the way, because so many military checkpoints. it was terrible night, it was terrible. but i survived and now, i'm in a relatively safe place. how come you were told to flee, told to escape, and you managed to escape, and so many others did not, including aung san suu kyi? were they not given the same information as you, that they should flee immediately? we are living in separate buildings. there are separate buildings so that members of parliament are living in some building and the president, the vice president and state councillor all are in different buildings. so i was lucky that i was living in a different building at that time. but in that way, i was safe. as one of the key voices now of the movement against the coup, how much real—time information are you able to get from inside your country? every morning, every noon and every evening, i get a briefing from the ground. every morning, i met with the people on our lines. so i keep in touch as much as possible. and i have the team on the ground that brief me and they give me everything that's happening there, so i am in touch with them regularly. as we understand it — and we see the graphic, the very troubling video evidence of the violence that the military is using to quell the pro—democracy demonstrations of many towns and cities across myanmar — we understand that scores of people have been killed. what is your information about the numbers who are dead and wounded as these protests and demonstrations continue? stephen, it's very clear that this illegal and illegitimate military regimes are well prepared and they are smart, and they have planned to hunt down as many as possible and to kill as many as possible. the snipers are on high and police forces and the military forces are on the streets. they occupy the schools, they occupy the hospitals, and they reign at night. so, at least, now, more than 2000 people have been detained illegally, including our president, our state councillor, aung san suu kyi, and at least some 62 people have been killed. i've got to ask you this — i mean, you are one of the powerful voices now in the committee representing the ousted parliament. would it be the responsible thing for you right now to send a message to the people of myanmar saying, "you'd better stay off the streets. it's too dangerous, the bloodshed is too much. and for now, at least, we need to stop the demonstrations"? is that something that you, as a medical doctor, if nothing else, have contemplated saying to your people? it's no difference between stay at home or stay in the street. every night, the military, the police, raid the house of the suspect that they think against them. so even if they stay at home, it won't make any difference between — for one of these army generals, who are determined to kill and to shoot to kill. so, right now, even the railway workers today — railway workers, they strike at their homes. they are not outside of the home. but the military generals send their troops to civilians, unarmed, of these railway workers. they are evicting these railway workers from their houses and they make the railway workers homeless. homeless, just for being on strike. but that shows how the brutality that we have. every night, the mums fear that this may be the night that my husband will be taken away. and the husbands fear today maybe my wife will be taken away by this militaryjunta. and the children are worrying away. even, i can tell you right now, my mum and my dad arejust stay at home. and they are in the village but they have been told to leave, to flee the village. now they are on a road away to the india—burma border. it's very sad. my brothers, my sisters — they are the same. we've been targeted. they are not protesting at all. they just stay at home. my mum is a cancer patient and she needed to get these operations a few months ago. so you can understand how severe a serious violation of human rights and the crimes against humanity has been taking place in myanmar, unfortunately. i just wonder whether you think the policy of the civil disobedience movement, as it's being called, of continuing strike action, as you say, railway workers, transportation workers, bank workers, civil servants — many workers are currently on strike. the economy of myanmar is obviously in a state of meltdown, and there is real evidence of growing extreme poverty inside the country. do you think that the idea of civil disobedience, including strikes, is actually imposing real economic hardship on the poorest people in your country? i think that the more — economy, right now, the problem is that all the economics of the country are under the hands of the generals. they stolen all the economy from the people of myanmar for their own interests and their own world. and we, the people of myanmar, will never allow our democracy will be stolen by them. we will not allow our freedom to be stolen by them, by guns. so we have been saying again and again to the international community and also to ourselves we will not die of starvation, we will not die of starvation but we will die if we have no freedom, we would die if we have no democracy. so this civil disobedience movement will not kill us. it's the guns, the weapons — it's the military regimes that will kill us. it's not only my generation. we think of my children's generation, my grandchildren�*s generation. if the system is not changed, if this regime behaviour is not changed, we have no future. that means that crimes against humanity will wipe out us. so this is the way of how we will stop these military regimes. mmm. and we are determined to fight to the end. i — i — well, i want to get to the international response you have seen injust a moment, butjust to continue with the situation inside myanmar, i just wonder what you and your committee representing the parliament, what is your strategy right now? because the generals appear completely unyielding. their position is not changing at all. so are you now thinking that you will have to enter a dialogue with them, or do you feel that that is an impossibility right now? these illegal, illegitimate military regimes have to stop all kinds of violence against the people of myanmar, because they have declared war on the people of myanmar. the people of myanmar should be protected by our armed forces. we have defence ministry to defend the people of myanmar and the country. the one who should be defending our people are killing our people, so that is not acceptable. so that means that unless they stop this violence act, there's no negotiations or whatever. they have to release all our leaders, democratically elected, and all the detainees that they have detained illegally. and then only we can talk about negotiation. 0n the face of the bloodshed, on the face of the suffering and the pain that they have imposed into the maximum, they cannot call any kind of negotiations. so, to be clear... they have to stop first. right, to be clear, then, you are not prepared to talk to the military regime at all until aung san suu kyi, all of the other imprisoned politicians have been released and that the army is taken off the streets. is that it? that's correct, because they are still killing the people of myanmar. so they have to stop their violence first, yeah? they have to stop. they must stop. but they... they're not stopping us... right. what is the point of us talking to...? but they show no indication of being prepared to do that. what they have said is that they will maintain the state of emergency but they will promise to hold new elections, because they say the november 2020 elections were rigged, they will hold new elections after one year. in your opinion, is that perhaps the basis for the beginning of a negotiation or not? no. we have had elections already in 2020, november 8, where the people of myanmar have spoken clearly and loudly and elected members of parliament by the people of myanmar for the people of myanmar to represent and uphold the people of myanmar�*s will and to uphold democracy and freedom. and that was silenced by guns, smoking guns. it's clear they will never accept the stolen elections and the will of the people of myanmar. we will not be silenced by such kind of atrocities they have imposed on us. right. and most importantly, the manufacture, the voter list of 10.4 million fraud from military battalions — the military officer are not election officer, they have nothing to do with elections. so they produce and manufacture from their guns machines. 10.4 million voters fraud without evidence of proof whatsoever. you, er... so, it's just completely wrong. i understand your current position. you have appealed to the international community to help you. you now, of course, are the sort of representative for the ousted parliament to the united nations, and you said, "we need the international community to recognise and work with us, the democratically elected members of parliament." but the truth is that around the world, reaction to what has happened in myanmar is mixed. i mean, you've got the us government and the british government putting some targeted sanctions on more members of the military council. you've got condemnation from many countries of the coup, but then you've got china, which refused to allow the security council to explicitly condemn the coup. and you've got the asean nations, your neighbours, all saying that they want the situation to stay calm. they want a dialogue to be established and they are prepared to work with both the military regime and people like yourself to establish that dialogue. so, are you satisfied with what you're getting from the international community or not? well, china has the power to stop all kinds of violence that's happening. china has the power to the reigns of the military of myanmar, and the asean — our brothers and sisters, our neighbours — have the power and the ability and the responsibility to stop this bloodshed. but they don't want to. they don't want to. of course, the united nations has been strongly opposed in the un general assembly of this military coup, and american government, the united states have put sanctions. the british government has put sanctions on the generals. these somehow will help the generals to stop and think again. more targeted sanctions and more tougher sanctions from the international community. and also, we must have unified and strong message coming from washington, dc and london and brussels to these generals. say this is unacceptable. we need stronger and unified voices and targeted and tougher and coordinated sanctions against this military. not onlyjust the military personnel but also all the people who involve in helping the military to take the power from the people of myanmar. but why do you...? yeah, but here's the thing. why do you think that perhaps the most important players in this, that is china and your neighbours in asean, are not speaking out in the way that you would like against the military coup? you said recently good neighbours should not play games with military coup leaders who are holding these smoking guns. and yet, at the very same time, we know that asean was reaching out to the military regime, was holding talks with them. so, why, in your opinion, is asean not following your wishes? unfortunately, i think they do not realise that having these illegitimate generals on their side will put asean into shame in international stage, and that their legacy as asean would be damaged and their reputation and dignity will go. so, i think they do not realise the reality of that calculation, that history willjudge us harshly if we do not act on this, because this is common sense to stop this bloodshed. we, the asean people, are peaceful people. we do not accept this kind of violence, and it's happening in a family of ten people. if one is behaving very bad, the nine members have the responsibility to tell him off. enough is enough. of course, this is very important that indonesia, likejapan, as well as india, and as well as our western allies, must stand with the people of myanmar. if they fail to stand with us, the situation will push us closer to china, and even to north korea, and even to russia. so, that is not what the western world would so, it's a very critical situation right now. we are at a crossroads now. if we do not restore democracy and freedom, the situation will put us more closer to china, more closer to russia, and also even more closer to north korea, because we know that the military regime has a relationship with north korea, dprk, kimjong—un, and they want to develop all sorts of weapons... well... ..to sustain their power, so we don't allow that happen. we will not allow that to happen. i hear that message. but, dr sasa, is it not time to acknowledge that the figurehead leader of the national league for democracy, state councillor aung san suu kyi, she bears a very significant amount of responsibility for what has happened in myanmar because she took the decision to work closely with the military to try to get your country on the path to democracy? she took a gamble that she could work with the military. she gave them guarantees about having 25% of the seats in parliament. she then watched them launch their military, their violent military campaign against the rohingya people and she not only didn't speak out against it, she went to the international court in the hague and defended the military. now the military has turned on her, but isn't it time to acknowledge she made some terrible mistakes? i agree that some...some mistake has been done. but, stephen, look at the situation. 2008 constitution was not drafted by aung san suu kyi. it was written and created by the generals for 20 years to sustain their power under the 2008 constitution that promised 25% of reserve seats for the military generals, including minister of foreign affairs, including minister of defence, including vice president and minister of home affairs. just imagine in civilian government when half of the most powerful seats of cabinet are taken away by the army. i understand she didn't draft that constitution, but she chose to play along with the generals because it seems she also in her heart is something of a nationalist in myanmar. she didn't have a problem, it seems, with what the military was doing to the rohingya people. now, you are yourself a minority, from a minority community in myanmar. and i'm just wondering whether it is now time, in your opinion, for the pro—democracy movement to say, "in the future, aung san suu kyi isn't going to be our figurehead leader. we need to find new leaders, we can'tjust go back to the status quo before february 2021. we in the democratic movement need to change. we need to unify myanmar behind new leadership." is that what you feel now or not? well, definitely we cannot go back. definitely we cannot go back to the past. we have to move on to the future. of course, the situation is different now than it was then, under aung san suu kyi's administration, health care, education and infrastructure, and all those sectors of the economy, they've been improved. they've been hugely improved. of course, this is not the time for us to blame any elected officials. these are the generals who have been there for decades, almost half a century, you know, are killing us, they're persecuting us. it's not our society who killed rohingya people. it is the generals, the same generals who killed at rakhine, a big minority people in 1997 and i998... 1988, they killed 1,000 students, yeah? 1997 again. 2007 more, and again 2017 rohingya. and now again in 2021, so it is for the international community and the world and asean and china to decide. it's better for us to have a stable country, democratic country, free country. it's notjust only for the people of myanmar, but it is for asean, it's for china, it's for india. it's for all over the world. so, it's a win—win situation. we must stand with the people of myanmar. dr sasa, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. hello. thursday felt like one of those days where someone up there was just playing with the taps — raining one minute, then dry, then rain, then dry. it was like that pretty much all day. and some of the storms pretty impressive. we brought some hail to the streets of carlisle. some of the storms dropped temperatures by up to 5 degrees celsius as they went through, and we had some of this spectacular mammatus cloud on the underside of some of the cumulonimbus thunder clouds — a sign of really vigorous storm clouds building. and more recently, well, some of those showers have started to turn to snow across parts of northern scotland, particularly in the high ground, so we've had a bit of everything really and we've got more of the same to come as well on through the course of friday. a risk of icy stretches, then, where we have this snow and those lower temperatures, particularly across the high ground in scotland. but there could be a bit of sleet or a bit of hail mixed in with the showers just about anywhere over the next few hours, and it's going to be a blustery old start to the day on friday. heavy rain for a time across wales and south west england, slowly pushing eastwards with some thunder mixed in with that. then we'll probably have a more generally showery kind of spell of weather for most areas of the uk. some sunshine, some hail mixed in with the showers, temperatures dropping sharply when those clouds go through. and then late in the day, another spell of more general rain is set to move in as the winds start to crank up again. yes, it's going to be a particularly blustery friday night and early part of saturday morning. now, temperatures, by the time we get to the first part of saturday morning, well, low enough to give us some frost and again, there will be some snow mixed in with those showers over parts of higher parts of scotland, so for some, a chilly start to the weekend. and the weekend, well it's dominated by low pressure. we're going to continue to see strong winds, showers or even a few lengthier outbreaks of rain diving across the uk. so on saturday, it is a day of sunshine and showers. again, some of the showers will have hail mixed in with them. still a bit of snow over some of the higher ground because yes, it is maybe just about cold enough for that. and again, when those showers come through, the temperatures will drop sharply by several degrees celsius, but these are the kind of maximum temperatures that you might expect to see — highs of about 7—10 degrees celsius — but perhaps feeling cooler, given the strength of the winds. for sunday, another weather system dives south—eastwards across the uk, bringing more general rain with it. probably the driest, brightest weather across northern scotland, and those temperatures coming up just an odd degree or so. that's your latest weather. this is bbc news: i'm victoria fritz with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a hundred millionjabs by day 60 of his presidency, joe biden uses his first primetime address in office to set out a pathway out of the pandemic. if we do this together, byjuly the fourth, there is a good chance you, your families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or your neighbourhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate independence day. three european countries suspend use of the astrazeneca vaccine after reports that some people given it, went on to develop blood clots. the british government warns that a british—iranian woman needs urgent mental health treatment after being held