YANGON: Five days of street protests over chronic power shortages present Myanmar’s reformist government with a headache and an opportunity.
Police forcibly dispersed protesters in the central Myanmar town of Pyi yesterday, a heavy-handed response reminiscent of the previous military junta that could fuel grievances among an impoverished and long-neglected people.
But state television also announced emergency measures on Wednesday to boost electricity supplies, suggesting a government that realises how popular discontent could derail its reform process and irk the United States and Europe, which recently suspended sanctions on this once-isolated country.
The danger is that these protests spark similar anger over other bread-and-butter issues bedevilling the people — high food and fuel prices and jobs for instance.
‘If they want us to stop protesting, they will have to give 24-hour electricity and more human rights,’ said K Lwin, a 20-year-old student who joined about 100 others yesterday for a third night of protests in Yangon, the country’s largest city.
‘I hate the previous government. The new government is better … but they can improve.’
The protests are the latest challenge for reformist President Thein Sein who has freed hundreds of political prisoners, started peace talks with ethnic minority rebel groups and held historic by-elections that catapulted Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party into parliament.
Western governments have begun unwinding decades of sanctions slapped on the previously isolated nation because of the fast-paced and historic reforms.
Last year, in what was one of the first signs of Myanmar’s new era, Thein Sein bowed to public pressure and cancelled the Myitsone dam being built on the Irrawaddy River by the Chinese. Power generated from the 3.6 billion project would have gone to neighbouring China.
The power protests have produced what could be another Myitsone moment: a chance for the government to prove it knows how to listen. (Reuters)