US issues Myanmar security warning

YANGON: The United States has warned its citizens travelling to Myanmar of potential security problems during the landmark November elections pitting Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition against the country’s military elites.
Myanmar is one month away from polls that many hope will be the country’s freest for decades, with Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy likely to wrest significant gains from the quasi-civilian ruling party that has governed since the end of outright junta rule in 2011.
But political and religious tensions are mounting as the November 8 vote nears.
The US State Department issued a statement on Wednesday urging citizens to “exercise caution” during the election period and to avoid polling stations, political rallies and demonstrations.
“Instances of unrest can occur without warning, endangering bystanders,” it said in a notice that expires on December 20, adding that there was no evidence that US citizens would be specifically targeted.
Myanmar suffered multiple bouts of political unrest and bloody government crackdowns during decades of iron-fisted military rule, while civil wars have raged in the country’s ethnic minority borderlands for almost 70 years.
The nation has also seen sporadic outbursts of often deadly unrest in recent years, largely targeting minority Muslims who now face increasing political exclusion as the influence of nationalist Buddhist monks grows.
The US was among nine countries that last month raised fears that rising religious tensions in Myanmar could spark “division and conflict”.
Thousands of monks from the hardline Ma Ba Tha group gathered in a Yangon sports hall on Sunday, in a major show of strength before the polls.
They have appeared to use their influence against Suu Kyi’s NLD, citing the party’s opposition to controversial “religious protection” bills backed by the monks that rights activists say discriminate against women and religious minorities.
Suu Kyi said she saw “worrying signs of religious intolerance” in an interview with India Today on Wednesday.
She defended herself from accusations that she has failed to speak out on the plight of the displaced Rohingya Muslim minority in western Rakhine state, saying it was the wrong way to achieve reconciliation.
Acknowledging trepidation among a people with long and bitter experience of repression, she urged voters to be “vigilant, cautious, careful and very, very brave”.
Authorities in Myanmar are deputising some 40,000 ordinary citizens as “special election police”, a move that has sparked concerns over their role in a nation where plain clothes volunteers were used to crack down on demonstrators as recently as March.