Flanked by tanks and missile launchers, Myanmar’s junta chief yesterday vowed not to relent amid a crackdown on opponents, and insisted that the military would hold elections, weeks after saying it did not control enough territory to allow a vote.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed former Burmese state councilor Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government more than two years ago after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.
The putsch sparked renewed fighting with ethnic rebels and birthed dozens of anti-junta People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), with swaths of the country now ravaged by fighting and the economy in tatters.
Photo: AFP
The military is taking “decisive action” against its opponents and ethnic rebels supporting them, Burmese Army Senior General Min Aung Hlaing told an audience of about 8,000 service members attending the annual Armed Forces Day parade in the military-built capital of Naypyidaw.
“The terror acts of NUG and its lackey so-called PDFs need to be tackled for good and all,” he said, referring to the National Unity Government, a body dominated by ousted lawmakers working to reverse the coup.
The junta plans to hold “free and fair elections” upon the completion of the state of emergency, he said.
The military last month announced an extension of a two-year state of emergency and postponement of elections it had promised to hold by August, as it did not control enough of the country for a vote to take place.
“Serenity and stability are vital” before any election can proceed, Min Aung Hlaing told the parade.
Planes flew overhead spewing smoke in the yellow, red and green of the national flag, and a flight of five Russian-made Sukoi Su-30 jets roared past. Women lined the streets leading to the parade ground to garland marching soldiers with flowers, images on state media showed.
Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of local resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II, and usually features a military parade attended by foreign officers and diplomats.
Two years after the coup, the situation in Myanmar is a “festering catastrophe,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said earlier this month, adding that the military was operating with “complete impunity.”
More than 3,100 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown on dissent since the coup, a local monitoring group said.
More than 1 million people have been displaced by fighting, the UN said.
The junta in December last year wrapped up a series of closed-court trials of Aung San Suu Kyi, sentencing her to 33 years in prison in a process rights groups condemned as a sham.
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