YANGON, Aug 11 ― At least three people in Myanmar died and several were seriously injured after apparently jumping from an apartment building in the main city of Yangon in a bid to escape a raid by security forces, according to media reports. Since the military overthrew the elected government of.
The former leader, 75, is standing trial on charges of illegally importing walkie-talkies, failing to comply with coronavirus restrictions and violating a telecommunications law. She also faces several other charges.
The United Nations special envoy for Myanmar warned Monday of possible civil war in the country, saying people are arming themselves against the military junta and protesters have started shifting from defensive to offensive actions, using homemade weapons and training from some ethnic armed groups.
Chrisrine Schraner Burgener told a virtual UN news conference that people are starting self-defence actions because they are frustrated and fear attacks by the military, which carried out a coup on February 1 against the democratically elected government, and is using “a huge scale of violence.”
A civil war “could happen,” she said, and that’s why for the past three weeks from her base now in Thailand she has discussed with many key parties the idea of starting an inclusive dialogue that would include ethnic armed groups, political parties, civil society, strike committees and the army, known as the Tatmadaw, as well as a small group of witnesses from the international communi
May 13, 2021
Anti-coup protesters from various township hold slogans that reads “Yangon boycott rally to clear all threats here in Yangon” during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar on Tuesday May 11, 2021.
Credit: AP Photo
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Almost as soon as news spread of the Myanmar military’s brazen coup on February 1, we began hearing calls for a “reversal” of the coup. Now, the international community’s efforts have focused on restoring the pre-coup status quo, as evidenced by the recent (and failed) ASEAN emergency summit.
These proposals and initiatives ignore the persistent demands from protestors and ethnic groups for a radical and fundamental shift in Myanmar. Perhaps most importantly, they fail to acknowledge that the rapidly deteriorating situation in Myanmar cannot be resolved with a return to the precarious pre-coup balance of power because it’s precisely this unsustainable framework that led to the coup in the first place.