12 killed in Myanmar protests

MANDALAY, Myanmar: Security forces killed at least 12 people, witnesses and media reported, as the acting leader of a civilian parallel government vowed in a first public address on Saturday to pursue a “revolution” to overturn the Feb. 1 military coup.

Five people were shot dead and several injured when police opened fire on a sit-in protest in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, witnesses told a British wire service.

Another person was killed in the central town of Pyay and two died in police firing in the commercial capital Yangon, where three were also killed overnight, domestic media reported.

“They are acting like they are in a war zone, with unarmed people,” said Mandalay-based activist Myat Thu. He said the dead included a 13-year-old child.

Si Thu Tun, another protester, said he saw two people shot, including a Buddhist monk. “One of them was hit in the pubic bone, another was shot to death terribly,” he said.

In Pyay, a witness said security forces initially stopped an ambulance from reaching those who were injured, leading to one death.

A truck driver in Chauk, a town in the central Magwe Region, also died after being shot in the chest by police, a family friend said.

A spokesman for the junta did not answer phone calls seeking comment. Junta-run media MRTV’s evening news broadcast labelled the protesters as “criminals” but did not elaborate.

More than 70 people have been killed in Myanmar in widespread protests against the military’s seizure of power, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group has said.

Vice-president of Myanmar civilian government vows resistance to junta rule.

The deaths came as the leaders of the United States, India, Australia and Japan vowed to work together to restore democracy in the Southeast Asian nation and the acting leader of the country’s ousted civilian government addressed the public for the first time.

Mahn Win Khaing Than, who is in hiding along with most senior officials from the ruling National League for Democracy Party, addressed the public via Facebook, saying, “This is the darkest moment of the nation and the moment that the dawn is close”.

He was appointed acting vice-president by representatives of Myanmar’s ousted lawmakers, the Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), which is pushing for recognition as the rightful government.

The group has announced its intention to create a federal democracy and leaders have been meeting representatives of Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed organizations, which already control vast swathes of territory across the country.

“In order to form a federal democracy, which all ethnic brothers, who have been suffering various kinds of oppressions from the dictatorship for decades, really desired, this revolution is the chance for us to put our efforts together,” Mahn Win Khaing Than said.

He said the CRPH would “attempt to legislate the required laws so that the people have the right to defend themselves” and that public administration would be handled by an “interim people’s administration team”.

A civil disobedience movement that started with government employees such as doctors and teachers has expanded into a general strike that has paralysed many sectors of the economy and taken a large portion of the workings of government out of the military’s hands.

Saturday’s protests erupted after posters spread on social media urging people to mark the death anniversary of Phone Maw, who was shot and killed by security forces in 1988 inside what was then known as the Rangoon Institute of Technology campus.

His shooting and that of another student who died a few weeks later sparked widespread protests against the military government known as the 8-8-88 campaign, because they peaked in August that year. An estimated 3,000 people were killed when the army crushed the uprising.