The power junta, who says he wants to carry out four capital executions, is put in difficulty by the rebels while the rainy season begins, not very conducive to army operations.
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The rumor, Thursday, June 16, of an imminent execution of four death sentences belonging to the resistance movement against the coup d’état of 1 er February 2021, stirred the networks Burmese social. Two of them are one of the best known figures of the fight for democracy in Burma: the activist and writer Ko Jimmy, his real name Kyaw Min Yu, 53, and the hip-hop singer, Zayar Thaw, 41 years old, ex-deputy of the National League for Democracy, the Party of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The first, who was a student leader during the 1988 uprising, spent more than fifteen years in detention between 1988 and 2012. The second, co-founder of the first Burmese hip-hop group, ACID, imprisoned from 2008 to 2011 For having carried out a campaign of graffiti against the then junta, had been elected deputy of the National League for Democracy in 2012, during the first partial elections which were opened to him, then again in 2016.
Both were convicted in January for organizing and planning attacks considered by the junta as acts of terrorism. On June 4, the government spokesman from the coup said that the calls of the two prisoners, and of two other death sentences, were rejected and that they would be hanged, causing the outcome of shields from NGOs and many countries – including France, which has criticized an “abject decision”. In Burma, demonstrators unrolled a banner promising “reprisals” against the junta, reported the Prodemocracy site The Irrawwady, on Twitter, June 15.
Protesters Hung A Banner Reading “If Death Sentences Are Carried Out, We Will Surely Retaliate,” On Yangon’s Pansod… https://t.co/qy71v61yaa
– irrawaddynews (@the irrawaddy (engine)
The last execution in Burma took place in 1988. If the previous junts also condemned many death opponents, they have never carried out executions – the appeal procedures generally not having Not even was started. However, 69 other persons sentenced to capital punishment since the coup of February 2021, are in the death corridor – 41 others convicted in absentia are on the run or have left the country, according to The association of assistance to Burmese political prisoners .
Contradictory signals
The threat of implementing these convictions is the sign, according to observers, of a certain degree of exasperation and helplessness at the top. The junta seems to handle the carrot and the stick with less and less subtlety: thus, on June 14, ten days after having announced that the execution of the four “terrorists” was imminent, the official press, whose global daily newspaper New Light Of Myanmar, published on the front page a strange call, signed by the government’s information office, to “those who were convinced by terrorist organizations to commit terrorist acts”, and to “launch armed resistance under various names, including That of PDF “: they are” welcome to return to civilian life, provided they lay down their arms “.
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