Myanmar military braces for silent strike

REUTERS: The Myanmar military has to cope with another protest on Wednesday with calls for a “silent strike” and for people to stay home a day after a seven-year old child was killed when security forces opened fire at a house during the crackdown.

Pro-democracy protesters also held more candle-lit vigils overnight including in a district of the commercial capital Yangon and in Thahton in Mon State.

The vigils came after staff at a funeral service in Mandalay told Reuters on Tuesday that a seven-year-old girl had died of bullet wounds in the city – the youngest victim so far in a bloody crackdown of opposition to the Feb. 1 coup.

Soldiers shot at her father but hit the girl who was sitting on his lap inside their home, her sister told the Myanmar Now media outlet. Two men were also killed in the district, it said.

The military had no immediate comment on the incident.

In what has now often become a deadly game of cat and mouse with security forces during street protests, pro-democracy activists switched tactics and planned to hold a silent strike on Wednesday.

“No going out, no shops, no working. All shut down. Just for one day,” Nobel Aung, an illustrator and activist told Reuters.

Social media posts and media indicated a range of businesses from ride hailers to pharmacies planned to close.

The junta has faced international condemnation for staging the coup that halted Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy and for its lethal suppression of the protests that followed.

It has tried to justify the takeover by saying a Nov. 8 election won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was fraudulent – an accusation the electoral commission has rejected. Military leaders have promised a new election but have not set a date and have declared a state of emergency.