Nun begs Myanmar police to stop but killing continues around her
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A nun went down on her knees in front of police in a northern Myanmar town pleading for a stop to the army’s violent crackdown on protesters, before shots rang out. She later said a child was shot in the head.
Video showed Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng in a white robe and black habit kneeling on a street in the town of Myitkyina on Monday, speaking to two policemen who were also kneeling.
“I begged them not to shoot the children,” she says on the video.
“I begged them not to hurt the protesters, but to treat them kindly like family members,” she told Reuters in a later telephone interview.
Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng pleads with police not to harm protesters in Myitkyina in Myanmar’s Kachin state, amid a crackdown on demonstrations against the military coup. Credit:AFP/Myitkyina News Journal
“I told them that they can kill me, I am not standing up until they give their promise that they will not brutally crack down on protesters.”
Tawng, who runs a clinic in the town, said she had received assurances from senior officers that they were just clearing the road.
Tawng and one of the policemen are seen touching their foreheads to the ground, but gunfire started soon afterwards.
“We heard loud gunshots, and saw that a young kid’s head had exploded, and there was a river of blood on the street,” Tawng said.
At least two protesters were killed and several others injured, she and other witnesses said.
A military spokesman and police in Myitkyina did not respond to requests for comment.
Tawng tried to bring some of the victims to the clinic before she was blinded by tear gas.
“Our clinic floor became a sea of blood,” she said. “We need to value life. It made me feel so sad.”
The nun had also come between protesters and police lines late last month, pleading for peace, local media reported.
More than 60 people have been killed and more than 1800 detained in the crackdown on protests against the February 1 military coup, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group has said.
A policeman who fled to India and has now spoken out, said he had orders to shoot at protesters with his submachine gun to disperse them in the town of Khampat on February 27, but refused.
Tha Peng said that, according to police rules, protesters should either be stopped by rubber bullets or shot below the knees. Reuters could not verify police policies.
He was given orders by his superiors to “shoot till they are dead,” he added.
“The next day, an officer called to ask me if I will shoot,” he said. The 27-year-old refused again, and then resigned from the force.
He said he left his home and family behind in Khampat and travelled for three days, mostly at night to avoid detection, before crossing into India’s north-eastern Mizoram state.
“I had no choice,” Tha Peng told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday, speaking via a translator. He gave only part of his name to protect his identity. Reuters saw his police and national ID cards which confirmed the name.
Tha Peng said he and six colleagues all disobeyed the order on that day from a superior officer, whom he did not name. His story could not be verified but the description of events was similar to that given to police in Mizoram on March 1 by another police lance corporal and three constables who crossed into India, according to a classified internal police document seen by Reuters.
“As the civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum and protest(s) held by anti-coup protesters at different places we are instructed to shoot at the protesters,” they said in a joint statement to Mizoram police.
“In such a scenario, we don’t have the guts to shoot at our own people who are peaceful demonstrators,” they said.
Myanmar’s military junta, which deposed the civilian government of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after detaining her, did not respond to a request for comment.
A senior Indian official said about 100 people from Myanmar, mostly policemen and their families, have crossed over a porous border into India since the protests began.
Reuters
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