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Myanmar Faces Growing Isolation as Military Tightens Grip

Myanmar Faces Growing Isolation as Military Tightens Grip
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By Staff, Agencies

Myanmar faced growing isolation on Thursday with increasingly limited internet services and its last private newspaper ceasing publication as the military built its case against ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi was overthrown and detained in a February 1 military coup, triggering mass protests across the country that security forces have struggled to suppress with increasingly violent methods.

The total documented number of people killed in the unrest stood at 217 but the actual toll was probably much higher, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group said.

Western countries have condemned the coup and called for an end to the violence and for the release of Suu Kyi and others. Asian neighbors have offered to help find a solution, but the military has a long record of shunning outside pressure.

Large parts of an economy already reeling from the novel coronavirus have been paralyzed by the protests and a parallel civil disobedience campaign of strikes against military rule, while many foreign investors are reassessing plans.

The UN food agency warned this week that rising prices of food and fuel could undermine the ability of poor families to feed themselves.

“Whatever happens in Myanmar over coming months, the economy will collapse, leaving tens of millions in dire straits and needing urgent protection,” historian and author Thant Myint-U said on Twitter.

While the security forces have focused on stamping out dissent in Yangon and other cities, small demonstrations have erupted elsewhere day after day.

Several thousand people marched in the small town of Natmauk on Thursday, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported. The central town is the birthplace of Aung San, the leader of Myanmar’s drive for independence from colonial power Britain, and Suu Kyi’s father.

About 1,000 protesters on motorbikes drove around the central town of Taungoo and hundreds marched in the northern jade-mining town of Hpakant, the Irrawaddy news service reported.

There were no reports of violence.

A 24-year-old campaigner against military rule died on Wednesday, three days after he was detained and beaten in the central town of Monywa, the Irrawaddy and Myanmar Now news portal reported.

The UN human rights office in Geneva said this week “deeply distressing” reports of torture in custody had emerged in Myanmar.

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