well large crowds have been gathering
again on the streets of myanmar's
commercial capital yangon as they
protest against the military authorities
who seized power just over two weeks ago
a nationwide civil disobedience campaign
has been underway
since the overthrow of onsen tsuchi's
government people taking to the streets
and civil servants also being urged to
strike
they hope that the turnout today
will be the largest so far that's just a
day after
onsen tsuchi herself appeared in court
via video link
to face a further charge this time of
breaking national disaster
law let's speak to our southeast asia
correspondent jonathan head
who's been monitoring all this from the
start jonathan it does look
i mean that the latest pictures we've
seen are of really
vast numbers gathering but we do hear of
confrontations with police as well
there have been some david nothing too
serious yet um in other places
uh the police have been somewhat baffled
by the tactics of the
of the protest movement uh as people
have
uh basically parked their cars to block
roads
uh pulled their um bonnets up and and
claimed that they their cars are broken
down it's called the broken down car
movement
that's to block the roads to try and
stop people going to work and to stop
the security forces from moving people
in i've seen
policemen arguing with people claiming
that they can start their cars
i mean this is taking place in lots of
different bits of yangon itself with
very large numbers of people
gathering right in the center of yangon
but in at least 18 to 20
other towns and cities two there are big
protests in nipidore
which is of course the the the
military-built capital the stronghold of
the current government
uh and the heart of the civil service
and this is all about trying to
stop government from functioning um the
civil disobedience movement has
sort of evolved and it's a lot more
organized now you can see signs of that
and the way that people are sort of
sorting themselves out as they come into
the city
to try to stop people from going to work
and to show that they won't go to work
in the hope of making in a way making
the country ungovernable at least making
public services come to a halt
and i think this big showdown today
which is a direct response to the news
that aung san tsuchi was
somewhat secretly and hastily put on
trial
yesterday that's really sparked off a
much bigger protest they want a big show
of strength
to show their feelings the military has
constantly claimed
that the reason for its coup was that
the the outgoing government lost its
legitimacy because of its failure to
investigate fraud
and what the protesters are showing is
look we all voted for aung san tsuchi in
huge numbers last
november and we're going to come out and
support her now that she's facing these
rather ridiculous charges
yeah i mean in terms of numbers though
jonathan it feels like
it's not just a momentum it's almost
like a tipping point isn't it
which you wouldn't want to be a union
not coming out
in support of all the others
yeah i think it will be there'll be a
lot of pressure on people not to go to
work and that's been the argument the
military has tried to claim that
uh this civil disobedience movement is
being driven by intimidation i mean
that's not realistic
uh there is strong pressure on people
not to go to work and i've no doubt
there is some intimidation but
the groundswell of anger about this coup
this sense of injustice is really what's
driving people
and this is the 12th day they've done
this these protests
um it affects people's livelihoods
people are willing to sacrifice a great
deal including
almost the collapse of health services
in places because it was doctors and
medical workers who started this idea
of non-cooperation with the military
regime banking services have almost
stopped functioning so people are
running out of cash
people are really going to suffer
economically because of this protest and
yet the numbers are still very very big
and i think that's a real problem for
the military government they've deployed
a lot of soldiers
but you can't really try and corral
protests when they don't have
a central point of organization they're
organized locally and when they
break out in so many different places uh
there's there's no real strategy
strategy from the at the moment from the
government uh about how to contain this
and that feared
you know violent crackdown that everyone
keeps in mind because it's what the
military's done in the past
is much much harder to do when you've
got cameras everywhere all
of this stuff's been live streamed they
haven't dared to shut down the internet
completely during the day
and where it's so fragmented as well
it's a much more modern style of protest
than we've seen in the past
okay jonathan thanks very much indeed
for that uh the very latest there
uh from yangon in particular now james
rhoda harbour is the head of the myanmar
team at the un
office of the high commissioner for
human rights in bangkok
i spoke to him a short while ago in fact
we focused to start with
on just what jonathan was talking about
the broken car
protest um using those stalled cars
effectively to block roads what did you
think of that
well i think that it's a quite ingenious
i think that the variety of ways
that uh such a large massive number of
people
particularly coming from the grassroots
uh there are different tactics in
in in peacefully demonstrating
and expressing their their opinion have
been uh
really admirable admirable is one word
you must be
anxious presumably that this cannot go
on
forever without the military taking a
heavier hand
well of course you the this uh military
has a very long history
of uh violent crackdowns and violent
responses
to public demonstration and to uh
quashing free expressions so yes we're
very
deeply concerned about the way that
things have been going in recent days
the increasing resort uh to the use of
force even if non-lethal force it's
still
unacceptable unlawful to use force
against peaceful protests
and yet uh despite that the protests
persist and they persist in their
peaceful nature
right um onsen tsuchi appeared via video
link for
uh in court on tuesday
i i guess your concerns there are that
um
this is going to be a very long period
of incarceration
even if it's about the court proceedings
going ahead
uh well of course yes we're we are very
concerned and
and in some ways confused by the the
charges that have been
uh leveled against uh the state
councillor
and the president uh i think that what
we
fear gets lost sometimes are the
massive number of other people that have
been detained
uh during the these last uh two and a
half weeks
my team has at this point compiled a
list of over 547 individuals
that have been detained largely in
communicado
and what that has meant is they have no
access to
a lawyer in many cases in almost all
cases
it's hard to know where they're being
held the fear
is that these may cease being unlawful
detentions and become
enforced disappearances james can i ask
you the the um
what i might call the partial
democratization of of myanmar the uh
the electoral success of onsen tsuchi
the
embracing of this country by the
international community
brought with it of course a tacit
understanding that the military still
had
a very strong hand within the running of
the country
when you look at where we are today and
the way this has emerged
was it a mistake to to buy that line
well i i it's always hard to know for
certain
you know how to how to handle an
analysis like that
you know looking backwards you're always
going to have 20 20 hindsight i think
one thing is clear
and that's that this current crisis is
born of impunity
it's the fact that for years people have
known that the tap medal
uh needed to be brought under civilian
control
the way it is in every other uh
democracy in the world
and that will be the key to stabilizing
the country