27th June 2021
Four people’s defence forces announced today that they will work together towards defeating the Junta. They are the PDFs from Kyaukse, Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway and will share technology and information. Meanwhile, the justice system in Myanmar gets ever more brutal.
At least 64 Myanmar citizens detained in protests against the country’s Feb. 1 military coup have been sentenced to death by junta courts, with the condemned list including two boys below the age of 18, according to sources in the country.
Most were arrested in townships in the former capital Yangon, where martial law was declared following the army’s takeover on Feb. 1, sources say. None of those sentenced are believed to have been executed, though, with no death sentences known to have been carried out in Myanmar since 1998.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the death sentences imposed by military courts in Myanmar have been handed down “out of resentment.”
“People don’t support their coup and are opposing it in any way they can. And amid all the arbitrary arrests and beatings, the people are fighting back in self-defense. The military then holds a grudge against the people, and they are handing down these death sentences out of resentment,” he said.
Nickey Diamond, a human rights specialist with the Southeast Asian rights group Fortify Rights, said that in recent years death sentences formerly imposed in Myanmar were changed under new laws to sentences of life in prison.
“But there are fears now that the [ruling] Military Council might ignore this fact.”
“These [death sentences] are the junta’s attempt to intimidate those who are opposing the dictatorship and to make them afraid,” he said.
According to data gathered by AAPP and RFA, of the 64 persons sentenced to death in Yangon since the Feb. 1 coup, 20 were sentenced in North Okkalapa, 18 in South Dagon, five in Shwepyithar, seven in Hlaing Thar Yar, and 14 in Shwe Paukkan Myothit.
Source Radio Free Asia 25th June 2021.
There are still demonstrations taking place, despite the Junta’s violent clampdown. The one below was in Yangon.
It has come to light that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing likes to make sure that he is punctual to meetings and so has a watch that he can be sure keeps accurate time.
It has been identified as a Patek Philippe Calatrava 5297g, priced at US$40,000.
It is difficult to estimate his army pay but it is thought to be around $1,200 per month.
Regular readers of these pieces will know that I have been commenting on the rough justice that would be administered to informants. Now it is coming to pass.
Seven junta-appointed administrators including members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and some accused of being junta informants were killed in a period of nine days in Myanmar from June 18.
Following the military’s Feb. 1 coup, ward administration offices, which are the key to the junta’s ability to govern the country, initially suffered from a series of arson and bomb attacks.
Then, junta-appointed ward or village administrators and regime informants increasingly became targeted for collaborating with the junta’s forces in arresting anti-regime protesters, striking government staff, civilian resistance fighters and others opposing military rule.
During the past nine days, killings of ward administrators and junta informants were reported in Yangon, Mandalay and Sagaing regions and Mon and Karen states.
On Saturday morning, U Nyo Aye, 54, who had been accused of being a junta informant, was stabbed to death by unknown gunmen, according to news reports.
Also, U Than Zaw, the junta-appointed ward administrator of Yangon’s Kyauktan Township, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his ward office on Friday evening. During the attack, another ward administration official and a police officer wearing civilian clothes were injured.
On the same day, USDP member U Nu Tin, who had been accused of being a junta informant, was shot dead by gunmen in Nyaung Hla Village in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township.
Following the attack, junta soldiers have been deployed in the village and most residents have fled Nyaung Hla, sources told media.
On Wednesday, a regime appointed ward administrator in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township and a teashop owner in Yangon’s Hlaing Township were shot dead after being accused of being junta informants.
Locals told the media that around 20 anti-regime protesters in No. 13 ward in Hlaing Township had been arrested by the junta based on information provided to the junta by teashop owner U Kyaw Aye.
On Monday, another junta-appointed village administrator was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Naung Bo Village in Mon State’s Thaton Township. Following the killing of the village head, two other village administrators from two nearby villages resigned from their positions on June 24 and 25.
On June 18, the junta-appointed village administrator of Yonesigyi Village in Mandalay’s Taungthar Township was shot dead by the Taungthar Youth Guerrilla force.
The group told Myanmar Now media that it had to kill the village head since the administrator was attempting to have peaceful anti-regime protesters arrested by reporting them to the junta’s forces.
Between May 27 and June 3, around 18 administrators including some accused of being junta informants were also killed.
The Myanmar military regime said at a press conference on June 12 that a total of 173 people accused of being junta informants had been killed.
To counter the anti-regime movement, Myanmar’s military regime has formed Pyu Saw Htee vigilante groups of military supporters across the country. The group members are trained and armed with firearms.
Photo by Sebastián León Prado
These actions are chipping away at the Junta’s efforts to impose some sort of control at local Government levels.
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