Anonymous ID: 77c806 March 9, 2021, 12:46 a.m. No.13173867   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3870 >>0197 >>1656

>>13169267

Australian Sean Turnell ‘tried to flee Myanmar with secret state financial information’, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing says

 

AMANDA HODGE - MARCH 9, 2021

 

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Sean Turnell, the Australian economics professor detained in Myanmar, has been accused by junta leader Min Aung Hlaing of trying to flee the country with “secret state financial information”, just one day after Australia suspended its military aid program with Myanmar amid escalating security crackdowns against protesters.

 

The Sydney professor and long-term economic adviser to deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi was detained in Yangon on February 6 — five days after the coup that toppled her government — while he was putting the finishing touches on a sweeping economic plan aimed at lifting Myanmar out of its COVID-19-induced slump.

 

“An attempt to flee the country by the former government’s foreign economic adviser, Sean Turnell, was stopped in time and secret state financial information was found through him. Union-level ministers are taking legal actions in relation to that issue,” state-owned MRTV quoted Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as saying.

 

Australia has called repeatedly for the junta to free Professor Turnell but the new accusations bode poorly for his swift release.

 

The federal government had resisted initial calls to halt its military assistance program, worth $360,000 in 2020-21, repeatedly insisting that its aid to Myanmar was under review.

 

But Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s Sunday night announcement that Australia would suspend that program and redirect development aid through non-government organisations in response to the use of lethal force against civilian protesters suggests any talks between Australia and Myanmar aimed at securing his release had broken down.

 

At least two more people were killed by security forces on Monday and several more wounded as tens of thousands of people participated in a nationwide strike called by some of the country’s biggest trade unions to force the generals to the negotiating table.

 

Witnesses in the northern town of Myitkyina said the two men had been shot in the head.

 

Some 18 unions, which include those covering construction, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, urged all workers in Myanmar to down tools to maintain the momentum of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) aimed at reversing the February 1 coup which toppled the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

 

“To continue economic and business activities as usual … will only benefit the military as they repress the energy of the Myanmar people,” the group said in a joint statement.

 

“The time to take action in defence of our democracy is now.”

 

The mass movement has already crippled the banking sector, shuttered hospitals, brought sections of the country’s rail networks to a halt and hollowed out government departments.

 

From Monday the junta has said any civil servant who continues to strike faces immediate dismissal.

 

Late on Sunday security forces began occupying major hospitals and universities in Yangon and Mandalay to enforce the new edict.

 

That did little to dissuade the crowds which included many women answering the call to join the so-called Htamain (sarong) movement by hanging the traditional garment on clothes lines across streets, or tying them to poles to unnerve soldiers who are said to believe that touching or walking underneath one can sap their potency.

 

Medical workers were among the first to instigate civil disobedience against the coup, which has seen close to 60 protesters killed by security forces and close to 2000 people detained, including Aung San Suu Kyi herself, and Professor Turnell.

 

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Anonymous ID: 77c806 March 9, 2021, 12:47 a.m. No.13173870   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>13173867

 

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International condemnation has failed to end the killings with weekend footage showing soldiers aiming their guns at civilians watching from their balconies, and the bloodied body of a Muslim official from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party who, the junta said, died in custody after he fainted.

 

The body of U Khin Maung Latt, 58, was released to his family on Sunday with a bloodstained cloth around his head and activists and NLD colleagues say bruising to his head and body suggest he was badly beaten during his detention.

 

“It seems that he was arrested at night and tortured severely,” Ba Myo Thein, an upper house MP before the coup dissolved parliament, told Reuters. “This is totally unacceptable.”

 

Not even death can guarantee freedom from military harassment in Myanmar however.

 

On Saturday the junta ordered the exhumation and post-mortem examination of 19-year-old protester Kyal Sin (also known as Angel) who died on Wednesday after she was shot in the head during a protest in Mandalay.

 

The young woman, who was wearing a T-shirt that read “everything will be OK” when she was shot, has become an icon of Myanmar’s protest movement.

 

Clearly eager to distance itself from her death, the junta insisted after the autopsy soldiers could have been responsible because the bullet wound was to the back of her head, though a photo taken of her just before she was killed showed her with her back to the soldiers.

 

Physicians for Human Rights on Sunday condemned the “violent invasion and occupation of public hospitals and wanton excessive force against civilians”

 

“If it was not obvious before, it is absolutely clear now; the Myanmar military will not stop violating the rights of the people of Myanmar until the international community acts decisively to prevent and account for these outrageous acts,” it said in a statement.

 

Just what can be done is still unclear after the UN Security Council failed on Saturday to come to any agreement on how to react to the violent junta in Myanmar, almost certainly thanks to the veto power of Russia and of China whose foreign minister assured Myanmar at the weekend that Beijing’s friendship would weather all future developments.

 

“No matter how the situation in Myanmar changes, China’s determination to promote China-Myanmar relations will not waver, and China’s direction of promoting China-Myanmar friendly co-operation will not change,” Wang Yi said on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary gathering.

 

China was also “willing to contact and communicate with all parties on the basis of respecting Myanmar’s sovereignty and the will of the people, so as to play a constructive role in easing tensions”, he added.

 

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/australian-sean-turnell-tried-to-flee-myanmar-with-secret-state-financial-information-junta-leader-min-aung-hlaing-says/news-story/37fb31dfd3eb115df6b494b4f5fd1ff0