RFA
With little to celebrate as they kicked off the Burmese New Year on Tuesday, people across Myanmar staged holiday-themed protests to defy the military junta in what an activist called “a funeral wake for the whole country,” while the U.N. rights chief said she feared the nation faces a fate similar to war-shattered Syria.
Opponents of the generals who overthrew the country’s elected government on Feb. 1 scrapped water-related blessings of the Buddhist Thingyan Water Festival for protest messages, strikes, and memorials to victims of the army regime that has turned rifle grenades and battlefield weapons on unarmed civilians.
RFA
Thousands of civilians staged protests in 11 villages in southeastern Myanmar’s Kayin and Mon states Wednesday, demanding that the country’s military withdraw from their area and abide by a nationwide cease-fire agreement reached in 2015.
The protests follow a flare-up since early December in fighting between Myanmar forces and the Karen National Union (KNU), with recent armed clashes causing more than 5,000 residents to flee their homes for refugee camps.
The KNU, Myanmar’s oldest ethnic rebel army, is one of 10 ethnic armies that have signed the Nationwide Cease-Fire Agreement (NCA) with the Myanmar military. The fragile October 2015 pact is intended to end decades of conflict that have hindered Myanmar’s political and economic development.