The scene was filmed from the window of an apartment. In the images you can see a Burmese soldier, sitting on the dirt road, with his legs apart to balance himself well. The man has two weapons, a rifle and a Kalashnikov. He takes the shotgun, aims for a long time, then shoots. He puts the gun away and takes the other one. Aim, then shoot faster. And it starts again. The demonstrators are not seen, but you can hear them from afar. The soldier coldly fires at civilians. His is not a self-defense action. He is there to kill.
The same scenes were repeated on March 27 in several cities of Burma, with the most serious toll since the beginning of the military coup on February 1: 114 deaths in a single day.
On March 28, the army opened fire to disperse the crowd that had gathered at the funeral of one of the victims. The military did not want to let the population mourn their dead, including some children, and above all they did not want the ceremonies to be accompanied by revolutionary songs.
Massacre
This senseless repression is experiencing a constant escalation, but it fails to tame the resistance against the confiscation of power by the generals. The non-violent opposition continues, and the demonstrators continue to challenge the soldiers in the street, with Molotov cocktails and even bows and arrows against the soldiers’ bullets.
International condemnation has become more severe, but it is not remotely capable of influencing the course of events.
On March 28, the same day as the “mass slaughter”, as the UN defined it, Burma celebrated as every year the day of the armed forces. The head of the military junta, General Min Aung Hlaing, promised new elections in his speech and thanked the foreign representatives present, namely those of eight countries including Russia (represented by his deputy defense minister), China, the India (which does not want to leave the field open to Beijing) and other Southeast Asian countries. Representatives from eight foreign countries watched a military parade as the army fired on the population.
Two permanent members of the UN Security Council participated in the parade of a coup army and perpetrator of a massacre. Faced with this fact, it is difficult to expect a coherent response from the international community. “Russia is a true friend,” exclaimed General Min Aung Hlaing. In this context, it is necessary to be truly friends to send a minister to Burma.
Faced with the foreseeable impasse, Tom Andrews, United Nations Special Representative for Burma, released a fire statement against the military over the weekend in which he recommended an intervention that could deprive the junta of the financial resources of oil and gas.
Andrews is not the only one to propose this measure, which would have an immediate impact far greater than that of individual sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe.
At the center of the debate is the French company Total, which extracts oil and gas offshore and covers half of the country’s energy needs. In 2019, Total paid $ 229 million in taxes and usage rights to Burma. In February the company said it was “worried” and expressed the hope of an exit from the crisis “through dialogue”.
Now that the death toll has exceeded 400, it is unacceptable that Total continues to pay the junta the dollars that finance the repression. If the French company was really “worried” in February, then it should take action today.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)
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