22nd-25th October, 2021

 

A day before the ASEAN summit, pro-military protesters marched in some cities, including Naypyidaw, Meikila, Pyin Oo Lwin, Madaya, Myitkyina and Putao. A police patrol car was attacked with bomb after a rally in Meikhtila, Mandalay Region, killing two policemen and injuring three soldiers, according to Khit Thit.

Kyaw Min Yu a.k.a U Jimmy, one of the prominent strike leaders of the 1988 movement, was arrested on 23 October in Yangon’s North Dagon Township, his wife, Nilar Thein, wrote on her social media page. A military source told Myanmar Now on 25 October that he is now at the intensive care unit at Mingaladon Military Hospital due to severe head injuries at the time of his arrest. His wife told AFP news that, “he was staying in a safe house together with two other activists who escaped from the back door.”

Mizzima reports that the junta troops arrested the wife and 9-year-old daughter of police captain Khun Aung Ko Ko, the first CDM police in Naypyidaw. On 23 October, the NLD township offices in Kyaikto, Bilin, and Thaton townships of Mon State were bombed simultaneously, according to the Burma Associated Press.

Fighting between the junta troops and the joint forces of Karenni resistance groups has again intensified in Moebye township on the Shan-Karenni (Kayah) border. A police colonel from the Special Branch (SB) was shot dead in Loikaw, Karenni State, on 24 October, according to the News Ambassador.

On the 61st anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the chairman of the (KIO/KIA), Gen. N’Ban La said in a speech that KIO/KIA would work with any anti-regime organizations to overthrow the military dictatorship. “We must talk for the interest of all our people in the country... His (Min Aung Hlaing) caretaker government is the most responsible for making the dialogue happen," Dr Nanda Hla Myint, a spokesman for the pro-military USDP party, told AFP on 23 October. 

A spokesperson for the junta told the BBC that ASEAN had invited Chan Aye, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the ASEAN summits and related meetings. But the junta’s ministry announced that they declined the invitation of the ASEAN chair, saying “downgrading the level of participant and limiting his role of discussions in the Summits is contrary to the Article 5 of the ASEAN Charter on Rights and Obligation.” Sao Harn Yawnghwe, director of the Euro Burma Office, has been appointed international representative of the PPST, alliance of NCA signatories armed groups, spokesperson of the group told CNI.