Myanmar’s military junta assured on Tuesday that it would hold an election and hand more than energy, denied its ouster of an elected government was a coup or that its leaders had been detained, and accused protesters of violence and intimidation.
The junta’s defence of its February 1 seizure of energy and arrest of government leader Aug San Suu Kyi and other people came as protesters once more took to the streets and as China dismissed rumours spreading on social media that it had helped with the coup.
“Our objective is to hold an election and hand power to the winning party,” Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling council, told the junta’s initially news conference because overthrowing Suu Kyi’s government.
The military has not provided a date for a new election but has imposed a state of emergency for one year. Zaw Min Tun mentioned the military would not hold energy for extended.
“We guarantee … that the election will be held,” he told the almost two-hour news conference, which the military broadcast from the capital, Naypyitaw, live more than Facebook, a platform it has banned.
Asked about the detention of Nobel prize winner Suu Kyi and the president, Zaw Min Tun dismissed the suggestion they had been in detention, saying they had been in their residences for their safety though the law took its course.
He also mentioned Myanmar’s foreign policy would not modify, it remained open for enterprise and offers would be upheld.
The military will be hoping its reassurances will dampen the campaign of day-to-day opposition to its rule and to the ousting Suu Kyi and her government.
As effectively as the demonstrations in towns and cities across the ethnically diverse nation, a civil disobedience movement has brought strikes that are crippling quite a few functions of government.
The unrest has revived memories of bloody outbreaks of opposition to virtually half a century of direct army rule that ended in 2011 when the military started a method of withdrawing from politics.
While violence has been restricted this time, police have opened fire numerous occasions, largely with rubber bullets, to disperse protesters. Six men and women had been wounded in the central town of Maungmya on Tuesday when police fired rubber bullets to break up a protest more than an arrested teacher, a witness mentioned.
A lady who was shot in the head in Naypyitaw final week is not anticipated to survive. Zaw Min Tun mentioned a policeman had died of injuries sustained through a protest.
He mentioned the protesters had been beginning violence though the campaign of civil disobedience amounted to the illegal intimidation of civil servants.
“We will wait patiently. After that, we will take action according to the law,” Zaw Min Tun mentioned.
The army has provided itself in depth search and detention powers and has created penal code amendments aimed at stifling dissent with challenging prison terms.
TRAIN BLOCKED
Protesters milled onto a sun-baked stretch of railway track earlier in the day waving placards in help of the disobedience movement and blocking trains in between Yangon and the southern city of Mawlamyine.
“Release our leaders immediately,” and “People’s power, give it back,” the crowd chanted in live photos broadcast by media.
Crowds also gathered in the primary city of Yangon, which includes at the central bank, exactly where protesters known as for employees to join the civil disobedience movement.
A group of Buddhist monks also protested against the coup in Yangon, though hundreds marched by way of the west coast town of Thanked.
The army took energy alleging that its complaints of fraud in a Nov. 8 basic election, in which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party had won a landslide, had been getting ignored.
The electoral commission had dismissed the army’s complaints.
Suu Kyi, 75, spent almost 15 years beneath property arrest for her efforts to finish military rule.
She faces charges of illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios and is getting held on remand till Wednesday. Her lawyer mentioned on Tuesday police had filed a second charge of violating a Natural Disaster Management Law.
The coup has prompted an angry response from Western nations and the United States has set some sanctions against the generals.
But China has taken a softer strategy, arguing stability need to be the priority in its neighbour, exactly where it has close contacts with the military.
China did, nevertheless, join other U.N. Security Council members in calling for the release of Suu Kyi.
On Tuesday, its ambassador, Chen Hai, mentioned the predicament was “absolutely not what China wants to see” and dismissed rumours of Chinese involvement in the coup as “completely nonsense”.
Chen, in an interview with media posted on the embassy Facebook web page, mentioned China maintained friendly relations with each the army and the former government and had not been “informed in advance of the political change”.
()