New Delhi: Opponents of Myanmar’s military junta sprayed red paint on roads in the country’s biggest city on Tuesday to mark the deaths of hundreds of “martyrs” killed by troops, as the crisis dragged on with no clear diplomatic solution in sight.
Some 570 people have been killed during nearly two months of unrest since the military coup on Feb. 1, and security forces have arrested close to 3,500 people, with about four-fifths of them still in detention, advocacy group the Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said on Tuesday.
Demonstrators woke early in Yangon to spray and splash pavements, roads and bus shelters with red paint in protest at a sweeping crackdown by security forces that has caused weeks of international outrage.
“The blood has not dried,” said one message in red.
Another daubed across a bus shelter took aim at rank-and-file soldiers who it said were being exploited by kleptocratic generals.
“Don’t kill people just for a small salary as low as the cost of dog food,” it said.
Anger has swept Myanmar in the past two months over the return of a military government and an abrupt end to a brief era of democratic and economic reform and international integration that was absent under the military’s oppressive 1962-2011 rule.(Reuters)
