YANGON (Reuters) – A bomb blast at a rural Myanmar election commission office has stirred fears of violence during the first polls in two decades next month in the reclusive military-run country, state media reported Friday.
A device made from TNT exploded late Wednesday at a government office in Bago Township, about 80 km (50 miles) north of the biggest city Yangon, but there were no casualties reported and staff had closed the office 45 minutes earlier.
Union Election Commission officials were using the office to coordinate the local ballot. State newspapers, which are mouthpieces of a junta that has ruled for the last 48 years, said the bombing was an attempt to derail the November 7 polls.
“They are trying to ramp up instigations and destructive acts with intent to disrupt the upcoming democracy elections,” said Friday’s state newspapers.
The media blamed “insurgents, destructive elements and political opportunists” for the bombing.
Critics of Myanmar’s army rulers have dismissed the election as a sham to create a military-dominated system run by generals and their proxies with little change to the status quo.
MONK JAILED, STUDENTS ARRESTED
The military has a 25 percent quota of all legislative seats and scores of generals have retired from the army to run in the polls. Several parties are serving as proxies for the regime and most of the junta’s opposition is hamstrung by strict rules.
A Myanmar court this week sentenced 12 people to prison terms between five and 23 years for bomb plots and another court handed down a 15-year term to a Buddhist monk for attempting to disrupt the elections, their lawyers said on Thursday.
The blast in Bago followed the death of two men shot dead in the same township by soldiers earlier last month. The regime cast the discovery of an unexploded C-4 bomb in a Yangon suburb a week later as retaliation for the killings. In a separate development, six students from Dagon University and Hmawbi Technical Institutes in Yangon have been arrested for distributing leaflets with anti-election slogans, university sources told Reuters.
The junta takes a zero-tolerance approach to dissent and rights groups say 2,200 people are now in prison for expressing their political views.
Myanmar has given no indication it will bow to Western pressure to release detainees before the election.
Source:http://www.euronews.net/newswires/506235-bomb-explodes-in-myanmar-election-office-media/
A device made from TNT exploded late Wednesday at a government office in Bago Township, about 80 km (50 miles) north of the biggest city Yangon, but there were no casualties reported and staff had closed the office 45 minutes earlier.
Union Election Commission officials were using the office to coordinate the local ballot. State newspapers, which are mouthpieces of a junta that has ruled for the last 48 years, said the bombing was an attempt to derail the November 7 polls.
“They are trying to ramp up instigations and destructive acts with intent to disrupt the upcoming democracy elections,” said Friday’s state newspapers.
The media blamed “insurgents, destructive elements and political opportunists” for the bombing.
Critics of Myanmar’s army rulers have dismissed the election as a sham to create a military-dominated system run by generals and their proxies with little change to the status quo.
MONK JAILED, STUDENTS ARRESTED
The military has a 25 percent quota of all legislative seats and scores of generals have retired from the army to run in the polls. Several parties are serving as proxies for the regime and most of the junta’s opposition is hamstrung by strict rules.
A Myanmar court this week sentenced 12 people to prison terms between five and 23 years for bomb plots and another court handed down a 15-year term to a Buddhist monk for attempting to disrupt the elections, their lawyers said on Thursday.
The blast in Bago followed the death of two men shot dead in the same township by soldiers earlier last month. The regime cast the discovery of an unexploded C-4 bomb in a Yangon suburb a week later as retaliation for the killings. In a separate development, six students from Dagon University and Hmawbi Technical Institutes in Yangon have been arrested for distributing leaflets with anti-election slogans, university sources told Reuters.
The junta takes a zero-tolerance approach to dissent and rights groups say 2,200 people are now in prison for expressing their political views.
Myanmar has given no indication it will bow to Western pressure to release detainees before the election.
Source:http://www.euronews.net/newswires/506235-bomb-explodes-in-myanmar-election-office-media/
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