YANGON, May 24: Myanmar police broke up a protest against power cuts by several hundred people today and five members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party were taken in for questioning, a senior party official said.
Demonstrations have taken place in Pyi and other towns week, including the commercial capital, Yangon, and the city of Mandalay, as citizens test the limits of democratic changes in Myanmar, leaving authorities struggling to respond.
Until now, the security forces have allowed the peaceful demonstrations to go ahead and the civilian government, which took over from a repressive junta in March last year, has promised emergency measures to increase the electricity supply.
“So far as I heard from our members in the region, there was a protest of about 400 people at least,” National League for Democracy (NLD) official Nyan Win said, referring to the area of Pyi, about 260 km (160 miles) northwest of Yangon.
“The police tried to disperse them and there was some rough manhandling and some people were injured. Five NLD members were picked up for questioning,” he said.
Kyaw Sann, a member of the NLD in Pyi, confirmed that the police had broken up the demonstration. About seven people had been arrested, he told Reuters by phone.
One protest leader in Mandalay said he had heard some NLD members had been taken in for questioning there, too, but that could not be confirmed.
State television said on Wednesday that six generators purchased from US-based Caterpillar Inc would be air-freighted within a week and two 25-megawatt gas-turbines would be bought from General Electric Co to help tackle the power shortage.
(agencies)
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