15th February 2021
It is getting difficult to get a clear picture of what is happening in Myanmar. Both sides now seem to be engaging in a PR exercise and in the case of the Military regime their grubby tactics are getting grubbier. In fairness to the military, they are showing no signs of discrimination and are inclusive to the point of being indulgent. In other words, they are beating the **** out of everyone irrespective of age, ethnicity, and gender. They arrested schoolgirls who were protesting in Mandalay, with their parents begging the soldiers for mercy, to no avail.
There are rumours abounding and even with pictorial evidence one can’t be certain that the accusations are true. It would not be surprising if they are true but they can’t be independently verified.
We’ll start with the respect that the military show to the people at large.
I know soldiers are under stress when on ops, but this suggests ill-discipline.
The police have started to use catapults to intimidate the crowds, and according to the protestors, try to intimidate them into action so that they can then respond violently. The reason for using catapults is an assumption, but an unarguable fact is that the police discretely DO use catapults.
Crowd Intimidation
They have become to be even more flagrant as the day goes on.
Police in Action.
Have a close look at the above picture. Amongst the police is a man dressed in fatigues, wearing trainers, and using a catapult. Is he police or military, and if military why is he there and why is he joining in? This gets further complicated by the picture below.
Here we have the military in action.
Is the man in civvies military or covert ops? Has he been mingling in the crowd to identify targets and ringleaders?
Has he been in the crowd before picking up his weapon and acting as an agent provocateur? The man behind the soldier in the foreground is also wearing trainers. As I said earlier, we have to be careful about the assumptions we make but what I feel is a fair comment is that he was up to no good.
Here is a picture of the catapult ammunition, I wouldn’t like to be hit by any of these.
Catapult Ammunition Used against Protestors.
They are apparently firing catapults into apartment windows and doorways to discourage people from taking pictures.
Following on from the observations about unscheduled “secret” flights into Yangon at dead of night it was rumoured that they contained IT equipment, technicians and special force soldiers. The soldiers depicted below, according to Burmese protestors have Chinese features. The simple answer could be that they are ethnic Chinese from Myanmar (they don’t tend to join the military, which is mostly Burma). What is odd is that the uniforms are brand new.
It looks as though there is another internet blackout tonight. Yesterdays was lifted at 9 am local time and this one is due to run from 1 am to 9 am local time. Perhaps more “seafood” is being flown in to the airport in Yangon tonight and they don’t want news and pictures leaking out. Or they want to keep communications down so that they can keep rounding up the leaders of the CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) and other political figures.
The Burmese are still managing to keep a sense of humour (just) in these difficult times. In response to the Chinese embassy’s description of the late-night cargo as seafood, this is what one local came up with – SEAFOOD – Software Engineering Approaches for Offshore and Outsourced Development. The British influence is coming through as well as the protesters have adopted fish and chips as their saying of the week. Fighting In Someone’s House and Causing Havoc In Peoples Streets.
I will finish with a photo that I find depressing but uplifting.
It is a sad, elderly man sitting on the roadside holding up a picture of General Aung San, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s father and the man who led Burma to independence but was assassinated before he could take office.
It is not just the young, computer savvy who are protesting, and that is why there is hope for the future of Myanmar.
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