Myanmar Journal: "Damn It Again!"
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I have done the best I could with the following report. Each time the soldiers come through our quarter for reasons of safety we sanitize everything before closing it all down and hiding things. In the past we were able to get a 5-10 minute warning of their arrival from quarter security. Now, the ranks of our Quarter security have been decimated due in part to loss of ability to use walkie talkie system and even greater due to the fact that most of security are in hiding as the soldiers and police have identified most of them and actively search for them in our Quarter. Unfortunately a day or two ago soldiers were in our quarter without warning and in our rush to sanitize works in progress I accidentally deleted my notes so I will reconstruct them as best I can. The events described are accurate but the same cannot be said for the dates and times.
27 March; South Dagon
Under a great deal of pressure from soldiers tonight but in this instance they are at a big disadvantage. This part of South Dagon contains housing for most of the poor, garment factory workers 90% of whom live in little more than bamboo houses with little or no electric making for dark neighborhoods.
Damn!!!!
Perfect example; as I was writing the above police and soldiers arrived in our quarter and everyone started beating pots and pans. We were banging for quite some time but police and soldiers did not respond as usual by throwing stun grenades, shouting, cursing and breaking windows along with rifle fire. We are not too surprised by this and in fact expected no reaction. I apologize that I cannot say why because to do so would give up our location. Back to where I left off……….
So, a truckload of soldiers (approx. 16 soldiers) gave chase to demonstrators down a side street and I don’t know specifics but the unarmed protestors somehow blocked them in on a pitch black road. A tremendous amount of gunfire and stun grenades followed but no one was hurt because it was too dark for them to acquire targets. We next saw from near the single convoy truck several flares sent up apparently calling for reinforcements which arrived soon after. We have never seen this done before but the soldiers were surrounded and were in a real jam. After several trucks of reinforcements arrived the crowd just vanished with no one
Shit…….. gunshots and stun grenades going off once again and I have to shut down
And I will try again……….8 police chasing down students on our street. They stop in front of one of the safehouses here and my heart sinks as they shoulder their rifles. Then, amazingly, they are looking in a different direction. After a few minutes they leave. After we got the all clear my wife and one staff walked to the market just down the road. We have a standing joke that she is like a magnet because whenever she goes out you can be sure the soldiers will soon follow. She has already been forced into hiding on two occasions while soldiers were chasing people. True to form, in the time it takes her to reach the market there is a change in the atmosphere here on the street. Whenever she goes out I am on what I call ‘balcony watch’ as from the balcony I have a clear view of the path she must take. I call my wife and tell her not to come back. Minutes later, everyone down below suddenly scatters in different directions. I call my wife and tell her to stay put. After the all clear is given I call her back and tell her to run back. She gets halfway down the road and 8 police are approaching but a trishaw driver quickly gets them on the trishaw and he brings…………damn it again!!!
Back yet again……..Pots and pans have once again sounded. Scrub and hide. We have no info as to what is happening and we don’t see anything on the road. But bang, bang, bang. I have now moved to another location. Very interesting. There is another group that has begun operating here and from my view point I can now see them in action. Because of the trees I can see what others probably cannot. And I have a pretty good idea of what it is they are doing but of course I can say no more at this time.
I am exhausted but can now head back home which will take some time. I think it is evident from the above that most days it is difficult to get anything done with constant interruptions. I should also mention that Clarissa Ward from CNN is in country today. As most people know, all mobile data has been closed meaning that appx 90% of the people have no internet access. Apparently in Ms. Ward’s honor the military has elected to keep WiFi open BUT they instead decided to cut the electric so that we have no internet at all!!
Given the time I will not be able to finish this today or maybe even tomorrow so I will just provide some brief notes about what more has taken place in South Dagon.
We have very good contacts there (no internet however) and at a minimum 22 people have died in 3 days while other info we received suggests more than 30.
An armored vehicle with a tank turret was brought in but no reports of its use.
Arrested civilians were forced to kneel before the soldiers and on a bullhorn one of the soldiers told the demonstrators that if they shoot any more slingshots they will kill those now kneeling before them.
We heard that the soldiers were now using RPGs! We heard exactly the same thing from another township a couple of days earlier (this is in addition to the hand grenades that have been used in the past week). We did receive some before and after photos of the barricade that was reportedly fired upon with an RPG. While there is clearly a large hole that was blown through the barricade we cannot confirm that it was an RPG. It could have come from some other type of bomb but it does appear to my untrained eye that it was something more than just a hand grenade.
At 12 pm on the night of 29 March we also saw a first. Someone posted a desperate plea for people to come immediately to South Dagon and to also phone all embassies about the tragedy taking place there. While we have seen similar pleas for help this one was much more desperate and urgent than what we have seen in the past. I am sure others tried to get there to help but I cannot confirm. I can say that from about 12 to 1 am people all over were furiously banging pots and pans in hopes of drawing soldiers out of the South Dagon area.
We were also provided with a photo of a body that was reportedly thrown into a burning barricade presumably of tires.
We received numerous reports of soldiers breaking into homes and stealing anything of value and throwing food into a nearby drainage canal.
They continue until today to try and arrest anyone associated with the NLD.