One week after staging a coup against a newly elected government, the head of Myanmar’s ruling military council appeared on state television on Monday night to assure investors that the country’s economic policies would remain unchanged.
Describing the coup as “unavoidable”, a tense-looking Senior General Min Aung Hlaing also promised to accelerate the country’s Covid-19 vaccination program and revive the stalled peace process.
He made no mention, however, of the massive protests that have filled the streets of towns and cities around the country in recent days.
That was left to the military’s True News Information Team, which released a statement earlier in the day warning that action would be taken against “wrongdoers” if the protests continued.
“We should take action in accordance with the law in an effort to effectively prevent those wrongdoings that ruin and disrupt the state’s stability, public safety and law enforcement,” the statement said. “If there is no discipline, democracy will be ruined,” it added.
But even as the regime was issuing warnings and the top general was promising that this coup would be different from those that had crippled the country in the past, the protests continued through the day and into the night.
As Min Aung Hlaing went on air at 8pm, many took a now nightly ritual indoors, banging pots in front of their televisions to drown out the senior general’s voice as he promised to build “a genuine and disciplined multiparty democratic system” out of the ruins of the one that abruptly ended last Monday.
Meanwhile, the third day of massive anti-coup street protests ended without any sign that the nationwide push to reverse the latest military takeover was losing steam.
In the administrative capital Naypyitaw, tens of thousands gathered at the Thabyay Gone Centre, facing off against riot police and security officers deployed across the road from them.
Chanting anti-coup slogans, the protesters told police they should serve the public, not the military, which had seized state power unjustly. As the size of the rally grew, police briefly turned two water cannons on the protesters.
Thousands of civil servants from at least 10 government ministries and agencies, including the ministries of foreign affairs, education, and health and the anti-corruption commission, have also joined a growing civil disobedience campaign by staging walkouts throughout the country.
“Our aim is to restore what we created and be able to shape a future without fear for our next generations,” one group of public employees said in a statement.
Similar sentiments were echoed by employees of the ministry of investment and foreign economic relations who had joined the civil disobedience campaign. In a statement, they said they would return to work only when the regime gives state power back to the elected government.
At the ministry of transport and communications, however, officials were compiling a list of employees who have not come to work, according to an official who asked not to be named, hinting at possible repercussions.
People from many other walks of life also joined the general strike on Monday. From activists, lawyers and engineers to construction workers, nurses and medical students, they turned out in force in a show of support for the growing anti-coup movement.
“If we don’t rise up against the military coup now, there’s no chance we’ll be able to fight back 10 years from now,” said one 21-year-old law student who joined student-led protests in her neighbourhood in Yangon’s Sanchaung township.
A 19-year-old first-time voter who walked more than 15km from North Okkalapa to Sanchaung to join the protests said he supported the movement because he wanted his vote to count.
“I can’t let the very first vote of my life be wasted,” he said.
Those who have joined the mass demonstrations are also demanding the immediate release of elected civilian leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and president Win Myint, as well as dozens of others detained since the military seized power last Monday.
The coup was set in motion just hours before the Lower House was set to convene and certify the results of last year’s November 8 election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide.
The military claimed it had found over 10 million irregularities in voter lists used during last year’s election, which it said could have resulted in vote-rigging.
The military and its proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, have claimed that some of the alleged fraud was perpetrated by schoolteachers in charge of polling stations and vote counting.
Hundreds of schoolteachers in Yangon took to the streets to condemn the claim and demand that the regime recognize the poll results.
“Teachers who served as poll workers have been accused of committing voter fraud. This is very offensive to us. We took part in this election in an honest and sincere manner,” said one teacher at a rally in front of the People’s Square in Yangon.
Hundreds of Myanmar Railways employees working in Yangon’s Tamwe township also joined the protests together with members of their families.
“We do not accept oppression and injustice. We only want a leader who will govern us with kindness,” said one 50-year-old railway employee.
Mi Mi Kywe, the wife of detained Yangon chief minister Phyo Min Thein, appeared at a protest site in the city on Monday to show her support.
“This coup is an act of tyrannizing us with weapons. It is unjust and we will resist,” she said. “If we don’t resist now, the country will go back to the dark days of military dictatorship.”
Nanda Sit Aung, a former student union leader who addressed a rally in Sanchaung township, said the aim of the anti-coup movement is to return state power to the elected government.
“It should be the result of the people’s choice and it should be respected,” he said to the crowd.
He added that the military should accept the people’s will and not repeat history by following bad examples of military coups in the past.
“We want to tell the military that now is the time to follow the will of the people.”
