Rallies in support of the military council took place in several cities across Myanmar on Monday and Tuesday as a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders commenced with Myanmar’s junta chief blocked from attendance.
The events were held in more than a dozen locations in military-dominated areas of Naypyitaw, Mandalay and Yangon regions and in Kachin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan states, according to local sources and photos shared on social media.
While pro-democracy protests have attracted hundreds of thousands of people nationwide—and been met with brutal suppression by the military—rallies in support of the army have been increasingly rare since they seized power in the February 1 coup.
Around 100 family members of military personnel in Rakhine State’s Kyaukphyu held a rally on Tuesday morning, according to a local media outlet Western News. Demonstrators were seen holding banners stating, “We Fully Support the Caretaker Government” and “We Stand With Our Defence Services.”
Citing a local resident, the report also said that a similar rally of around 70 people was held in Taungup on the same morning.
Supporters of the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party and the coup regime also held a rally on Monday in Thandwe, it said.
According to a video shared on social media, a similar rally was held in Thanbyuzayat, Mon State, on Tuesday morning in a football stadium. Less than 100 people were seen attending the rally in the video footage.
An eyewitness told Myanmar Now that around 30 so-called “military supporters” paraded around Kyaukse in Mandalay Region on Monday morning, with many visibly carrying guns under their jackets.
Some were assumed to be police officers, the local said, and noted that these individuals were wearing yellow ribbons on their arms. Those who participated in the rally initially met at the base of Infantry Battalion 14 and marched south through the town, he said.
Self-proclaimed “patriot” and ultranationalist military supporter Michael Kyaw Myint led a similar rally in Mandalay on Monday afternoon. He posted a video of himself on social media delivering a speech at the event in which he claimed that those present loved “the country, the military and the truth.”
“Mandalay shall be free of terrorism. This is a rally to show that we, the people of Myanmar, strongly condemn all acts of terrorism all over the country,” he said in the video, a reference to the activities of the anti-junta resistance movement.
A resistance group calling itself the “Fox Force” which has been monitoring military activities reported that army supporters gathered at the base of Mandalay Hill at around 1pm after a march accompanied by several police vehicles and guarded by soldiers stationed in pairs.
“We saw there were soldiers and patrol vehicles on guard duty for the military supporters. There were several plainclothes personnel as well. They were also seen patrolling the town,” a spokesperson for the group told Myanmar Now.
Amid the tightened security in Mandalay, a bomb blast targeted a military vehicle in front of the police station in Meiktila—also in Mandalay Region—just hours after a 200-person rally in the town on Monday, severely injuring at least three police officers and a soldier, according to witnesses.
While it could not be confirmed who had organised the rallies, Capt Lin Htet Aung—a military officer who deserted the armed forces after the February coup and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement—wrote on his Facebook page that weapons concealed under the jackets of bystanders suggested that several plainclothes soldiers had been placed on guard duty for the events.
“I think this is a military program,” he said.
A local in Mawlamyine claimed that around 100 soldiers were on guard throughout the rally in the Mon State capital on Monday at 8am. It was attended by around 200 people, including two monks, he said. Social media posts by known pro-military accounts suggested a similar turnout.
“There were police officers placed eight feet apart along the entire street. They were hiding in plain sight,” the local told Myanmar Now, adding, “No one knew how they got in.”
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) moved on October 15 to exclude Myanmar coup leader Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing from attending the bloc’s biannual summit on Tuesday. The decision came after the junta refused to allow ASEAN’s envoy to the country to meet with requested political actors, including leaders ousted in the coup.
Instead, ASEAN invited a “non-political representative” to attend in Min Aung Hlaing’s place, but the junta rejected the invitation, which was extended by current ASEAN chair Brunei to Chan Aye, Myanmar’s highest-ranking diplomat. In a statement issued in response to the gesture, the coup regime said it would not accept a “downgraded” role.
