Protests sweep Myanmar to oppose coup, support Suu Kyi

February 8 ------ Tens of thousands of people rallied across Myanmar on Sunday to denounce last week’s coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the biggest protests since the 2007 Saffron Revolution that helped lead to democratic reforms. On the second day of widespread protests, crowds in the biggest city, Yangon, sported red shirts, red flags, and red balloons, the color of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD).

“We don’t want military dictatorship! We want democracy!” they chanted. On Sunday afternoon, the junta ended a day-long blockade of the internet that had further inflamed anger since the coup last Monday that has halted the Southeast Asian nation’s troubled transition to democracy and drawn international outrage. Massive crowds from all corners of Yangon gathered in townships, filling streets as they headed towards the Sule Pagoda at the heart of the city, also a rallying point during the Buddhist monk-led 2007 protests and others in 1988.

A line of armed police with riot shields set up barricades but did not try to stop the demonstration. Some marchers presented police with flowers as a sign of peace. Protesters gestured with the three-finger salute that has become a symbol of protest against the coup. Drivers honked their horns and passengers held up photos of Suu Kyi. “We don’t want a dictatorship for the next generation,” said 21-year-old Thaw Zin. “We will not finish this revolution until we make history. We will fight to the end.”

There was no comment from the junta in the capital Naypyitaw, more than 350 km (220 miles) north of Yangon and state-run television news carried no mention of the protests. An internal note for U.N. staff estimated that 1,000 people joined a protest in Naypyidaw while there were 60,000 in Yangon alone. Protests were reported in the second city of Mandalay and many towns and even villages across the country of 53 million people that stretches from Indian Ocean islands to the fringes of the Himalayas.

The demonstrations have largely been peaceful, unlike the bloody crackdowns seen in 1998 and 2007. But shots were heard in the southeastern town of Myawaddy as uniformed police with guns charged a group of a couple of hundred protesters, the live video showed. Pictures of protesters afterward showed what appeared to be rubber bullet injuries.

Source: inquirer.net