The Burmese army took over the party headquarters of the ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon on Tuesday evening, February 9, without regard to the United Nations call to end the crackdown on demonstrators calling for the return of democracy.
According to Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (LND), the soldiers who carried out a putsch last week and arrested the prime minister, taking hundreds of thousands of Burmese into the streets, have this once raided the training premises in Yangon.
A “disproportionate” use of force
“The military dictator took over and destroyed the LND headquarters at around 9:30 p.m.” (4 p.m. in France), the party said on its Facebook page. The raid came as protests took place for the fourth consecutive day in several towns, suppressed with water cannons and fire from rubber bullets.
The UN on Tuesday condemned the “disproportionate” and “unacceptable” use of force. “Many protesters have been injured, some seriously,” according to reports received from several cities in the country, said Ola Almgren, United Nations resident coordinator in Burma. A Burmese doctor said the soldiers also fired live ammunition, judging from the injuries sustained by two young men hospitalized in critical condition.
The international community condemns the violence
The United States also “strongly condemned the violence against protesters.” They renewed their call to respect the freedom of expression of the Burmese people and to “restore the democratically elected government”.
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell spoke of the adoption of new sanctions against the Burmese army: “We are reviewing all our options”, he told MEPs, stressing however that these targeted measures should not strike the population. It was at this stage impossible to obtain an estimate of the number of injured from hospitals.
An unprecedented wind of protest
In recent days, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have marched across the country, demanding the release of those detained, the end of the dictatorship and the abolition of the 2008 constitution, which is very favorable to the army. This wind of protest is unprecedented since the popular uprising of 2007, the “Saffron Revolution” led by the monks and violently repressed by the military.
The risk of repression is real in the country which has already lived for almost 50 years under the yoke of the military since its independence in 1948. Since February 1, more than 150 people – deputies, local officials, activists – have been arrested and are being arrested. still in detention, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, based in Rangoon. The February 1 coup put an end to a brief decade-long democratic parenthesis.
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