myanmar's military hunter has extended
the detention of deposed leader aung
sang-soo-chi
she was due to be released today but
will now remain in jail until
february 17th protesters are once again
on the streets demanding her release and
an end to the coup
that brought the junta to power two
weeks ago
the military has intensified its
crackdown on the protests
sending armored vehicles to patrol the
streets and imposing an
internet blackout this after images were
circulated online that showed
the military firing on a crowd of
protesters
it's unclear whether live ammunition was
used
let's bring in journalist dave
grinnebaum here he's covered myanmar
extensively and joins us now
from kuala lumpur good to see you again
dave tell us how's the situation
in myanmar right now how volatile is it
yeah i communicated with some people on
the ground in yangon this morning and
it's clearly things are very tense there
as you said
armored vehicles on the streets soldiers
patrolling in fatigues you've got police
you've got water cannon visible
uh people are certainly on edge now
there are reports that there are fewer
demonstrators on the streets in yangon
now compared to the previous days but
it's early afternoon there so we'll see
if those crowds pick
up one thing that has also created a lot
of tension are these nighttime raids and
arrests that are going on
the military has given itself sweeping
powers
they can detain people without a court
order
they can search property without a court
order
now people have created these sort of
neighborhood watch groups to try to keep
an eye out for the police
to alert one another to try to protect
one another but they tell me this is
leading to just
a lot of sleepless nights so things are
really tense i think a really
key thing to keep an eye on uh over
these next few days
is this government work stoppage that is
going on basically government employees
who are refusing to go
to work if this continues and if it
continues to pick up momentum and get
more and more government workers on
board
it could make it difficult for the
military to keep the government running
and if that happens in some key
sectors senior general minon long the
man who's basically put himself in
charge of the whole country
may feel that he is backed into a corner
and then how does he respond
then that's the key thing we got to look
out for now that scenario
and when this coup happened the the
civilian leader the
de facto civilian leader aung san tsuchi
was arrested uh
she's still in detention her lawyers
announced she will not appear in court
today
uh as expected she's going to be kept in
custody at least until
wednesday do we know what's happening
with her
yeah well so basically according to
laura that happened because that's what
a judge
decided to judge and napied of the
capital keep in mind myanmar
does not have an independent judiciary
so as long as the military is running
the country
they're gonna find a way to keep her in
detention for as long as they want to
that's just the bottom line especially
with those sweeping powers they've given
themselves that i just described a
minute ago
now the military is also shutting down
the internet whenever it suits them
severely disrupting communications now
some of that apparently has been
restored but
social communication social media
platforms are still severely restricted
what does this mean for the protest
movement in a country where
facebook is the de facto communication
main line of communication
yeah so the bottom line is these
demonstrators they're finding ways to
communicate with each other
some of them have gotten virtual private
networks to get around
shutdown some of them have been using
sim cards from other countries such as
singapore
and thailand i mean if you look at the
past days of demonstrations there's a
sign i saw
numerous times that really stood out to
me and it said you've messed with the
wrong generation
and what that basically says is that
you've got technology today that they
didn't have decades ago when the
demonstrators
protested the prior who does and that
this is a smart
tech savvy generation and they're going
to use that to their advantage
they do not want to live under military
rule like their parents and grandparents
used to
dave thank you very much as always
journalist david bound there in kuala
lumpur
you