(Reuters) – United States leaders and allies India, Australia and Japan vowed on Friday to work together to restore democracy in Myanmar, where violence has escalated as coup leaders seek to disrupt a sweeping movement of protests and civil disobedience .
In Myanmar, security forces continued to crackdown on the opposition to the takeover of the army on Feb. 1. In at least one case, they forced patients out of a hospital.
A day after 12 people were murdered in one of the bloodiest days since the coup, the former colonial power Britain warned its citizens to leave, saying “political tensions and unrest have been widespread since the military takeover and violence is increasing. “.
The coup in Myanmar, where the military has close ties with China, is an important early test for new US President Joe Biden.
His administration marked Friday’s virtual meeting with the Indian, Japanese and Australian leaders, the first official leader’s summit of a group known as the Quad, as part of an effort to demonstrate a renewed US commitment to regional security.
“As long-standing supporters of Myanmar and its people, we stress the urgent need to restore democracy and the priority of strengthening democratic resilience,” the four leaders said in a White House statement.
More than 70 protesters have now been killed in the Southeast Asian nation since the military took power, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) advocacy group said.
Memorial services were held for some of them on Friday, including a man whose family said his body had been taken by security forces and not returned.
A spokesperson for the junta did not answer calls from Reuters asking for comment.
South Korea said Friday it would suspend defense exchanges and reconsider development aid to Myanmar over the violence. The Kremlin said Russia, which has close ties with the Myanmar military, was concerned about the increasing violence and was “analyzing” whether it would suspend military-technical cooperation.
“We rate the situation as alarming, and we are concerned about the information about the growing number of civilian casualties coming from there,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency.
Protests were held on Friday in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and in several other cities, photos posted to social media by witnesses and news organizations showed. Many were distributed by security forces.
Poland’s Foreign Ministry said a Polish journalist has been arrested, the second foreign reporter to be detained. A Japanese journalist was briefly detained while covering a protest.
Riot police and armed soldiers entered the general hospital in Hakha, western Chin State, forcing all 30 patients to leave and expelling staff from their housing, local activist Salai Lian said.
VIGIL
Soldiers occupy hospitals and universities across Myanmar as they try to destroy a civil disobedience movement that started with government employees such as doctors and teachers but has grown into a general strike that has paralyzed many sectors of the economy.
In the evening, large crowds gathered for evening vigils. In Yangon, the commercial capital, they lit candles in the form of a three-finger greeting symbolizing the movement, while monks in saffron robes gathered outside a pagoda in the northern Sagaing region.
The country has been in crisis since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government last month, detained it and established a ruling junta of generals.
Junta spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun said on Thursday that Suu Kyi had accepted illegal payments, adding corruption to a series of smaller allegations against her, such as illegally importing six walkie-talkies.
“This accusation is the most hilarious joke,” Suu Kyi’s lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said on social media on Friday. “She may have other weaknesses, but she has no weakness in moral principles.”
UN human rights researcher Thomas Andrews on Friday dismissed as “absurd” remarks by a senior official in Myanmar that the authorities are “showing extreme restraint”. Speaking to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, he called for a unified approach to “allay the junta’s sense of impunity.”
Reporting by Reuters personnel; Written by Ed Davies, Raju Gopalakrishnan, and Poppy McPherson; Adaptation by Lincoln Feast, Clarence Fernandez, Catherine Evans and Peter Graff