Translated material
Shooting the monks
Russia and China protected Burma from sanctions
The situation in Myanmar (Burma) is heating up . Government troops opened fire on demonstrators in Yangon. At least nine people died. Among them is a Japanese cameraman. Dozens of people are injured. True, the authorities claim that the data cited by Western media are exaggerated.The violent action did not come as a surprise. Before the shooting, the military ordered protesters through microphones to leave the streets and fired warning shots into the air. But the crowd of protesters against the military junta, numbering about 10 thousand (according to other sources - 70 thousand) people, continued to demand the restoration of a democratic regime in Myanmar. Stones and bottles were thrown at the law enforcement officers.
Yangon has been in turmoil since the beginning of the week, but in the early days the government did not use force, respecting the integrity of the Buddhist monks who led the opposition. Formally, it all started due to a sharp increase in domestic gas prices. The opposition was supported by the United States, Great Britain and France, which currently chairs the UN Security Council. But the introduction of sanctions against the Myanmar regime was blocked by China. His permanent representative to the UN, Wang Guangya, considered it inappropriate to interfere in the internal affairs of Myanmar.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also agrees with the Chinese. Moscow called “any attempts to use these events to exert external pressure or interfere in the internal affairs of this sovereign state as counterproductive.” Russia called on all parties to the conflict to “show maximum restraint and look for ways to return the situation to normal.”
A Russian specialist on regional problems, head of the department of Southeast Asian countries at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitry Mosyakov, explained to Vremya Novostey the consistency of the positions of Russia and China with an understanding of the “ambiguity of the situation”: “When making decisions regarding Myanmar, it is extremely important to take into account whether this multinational country will retain its unity, is it possible to avoid civil war.” The expert admitted that one of the reasons for the events was “the ineffectiveness of the Burmese regime.” However, he also noted “the radicalism of the local pro-Western opposition, which is not inclined to compromise with the military, who come from the poor strata of the peasantry.” According to our interlocutor, due to this specificity, it is impossible to compare this conflict with the “Orange and other color revolutions,” although some Western experts allow themselves such comparisons.