Mawlamyine, April (11)
The military council is attempting to attract huge crowds to the Myanmar New Year’s Thingyan Festival, which will be held in the couple of days, and the revolutionary forces in Mon state are urging people not to participate in the festival as it is a sham event.
To make the Thingyan Festival more crowded, the military council is building pavilions in many townships in Mon State, and is pressuring entrepreneurs and companies to build compulsory Thingyan pavilions.
“The Thingyan Festival organized by the military regime is a political exploitation, and the people should not go to the pavilions to be safe and not forget that they are celebrating the events with the tears of other people,” said Nai Nagar, spokesperson of the Mon State Revolutionary Force (MSRF).
Since April 3, the Mon State Council has been constructing the Thingyan Central Pavilion in Mawlamyine, the state capital. Pavilions are now being built in townships where water-throwing pavilions and entertainment pavilions could not be built last year.
In addition, the authorities have instructed departmental offices, ethnic representative groups in the region, township representative groups, and women’s affairs organizations to perform a dance group per organization in order to keep people crowded during Mawlamyine Thingyan.
Ko Aye Min Tun, a PDF official in Thaton District, urged people not to go to the festival because this year’s Thingyan is not the kind of Thingyan that the people will celebrate happily, but rather an event that puts pressure on the departmental staff and shows it to the world.
“I’d like to request that people refrain from participating in Thingyan out of sympathy for the comrades who sacrificed for the revolution,” he said.
Ye Min, the deputy leader of the Ye Guerrilla Force from Ye Township—the only city in Mon State to be placed under martial law—told Than Lwin Times that he wants the people to consider the military council’s sham festival as a revolutionary Thingyan.
In the more than two years since the military coup, the armed clashes between the junta army and the resistance forces have been intensifying until today in the ethnic areas and areas where fierce fighting took place.
On the other hand, due to the junta army’s worsening human rights violations and crackdown on pro-democracy forces, nearly 20 civilians have been killed and more than 40 injured in Mon State in the past two months.
The military council has instructed the departments to include programs such as paying respect to the elderly, releasing fish, and offering food donations in this year’s Thingyan Festival.
In Mon State, the Thingyan Festival has not been held since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the people also did not participate in Thingyan in 2021 and 2022, which were held after the military coup.
News – Than Lwin Times
Photo: TLT