Sunday April 4th 2021
“Get out of here, MAH”
Eggs as a symbol of protest in Myanmar
Most of them are Buddhists, but the demonstrators in Myanmar use a custom of the Christian Easter festival: They paint eggs as a sign of protest. After the military coup a few weeks ago, the country cannot calm down. Hundreds have already died.
In Myanmar, protesters have made Easter eggs a symbol of their resistance to the military government. Although the country is predominantly Buddhist, people posted photos of Easter eggs on social media with slogans against the February 1 coup. Numerous demonstrators also called for a return to democracy at rallies.
Across the country, people are still on strike to fight for an end to the dictatorship, for democracy and human rights, said the prisoners’ aid organization AAPP, which is trying to get an overview of the number of arrests and victims in the protests. According to her, 557 people have been killed since the coup. Yet in many cities people take to the streets every day, often in small groups. Hundreds gathered in Mandalay, the country’s second largest city, until police and soldiers dispersed them.
During the night, people held candles to commemorate the protesters who had been killed. According to the AAPP, around 2,660 people are in custody. Among them are four women and two men who last week gave interviews to a team from the US broadcaster CNN in the economic metropolis of Yangon. An often creative campaign of civil disobedience has been going on for weeks. At Easter, numerous residents of the Southeast Asian country sent messages with pictures of Easter eggs that read “Spring Revolution”, “We must win” and “Get out of here, MAH”, meaning the head of the military government, Min Aung Hlaing.
Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called for a civil war to be averted in Myanmar. “The military drove Myanmar to the brink of disaster within a few weeks,” said the SPD politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “Nobody in the region can have an interest in Myanmar sinking into civil war – not even those who are not interested in saving democracy.” All actors must now increase the pressure on the military government so that it accepts the offers of talks from the Asean states.
Democratization process stopped by coup
Within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Indonesia has taken the lead in finding a way out of the crisis in Myanmar. Myanmar belongs to the Organization of the Ten Asean States, which is based in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. Myanmar’s military had put in a coup on February 1 and arrested the de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and several leaders of her party, the National League for Democracy (NDL). On that day, the parliament elected on November 8th should have met for its constituent session.
The NDL won the election by a large margin, but the military does not recognize the result, speaks of fraud and has declared a state of emergency. Suu Kyi is charged with multiple offenses, which could face up to 14 years in prison. Her lawyers describe the allegations against the 75-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner as baseless.
The coup halted the democratization process that had just begun a few years earlier and brought back memories of almost half a century of military rule. After the 1962 coup, the military had ruled for 49 years. In 2011 it began to withdraw from politics, but it never gave up control of the civilian government. The general election in November was the second free vote since the end of direct military rule in 2011.
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