Crowds peacefully flexed their muscles yesterday and pushed large truck trailers blocking Yangon bridges – thwarting apparent attempts to hinder the mass rallies.
Four large truck trailers blocked the roads on Thanlyin bridge in the morning but people managed to budge one truck so that motorbike taxis could squeeze through and ferry people across.
Truck trailers were also parked across the Ngamoeyeik Creek bridge on Lay Htauk Kan Road and Bailey bridge in Yangon’s North Dagon Township and the tyres of vehicles were deflated, according to The Standard Time Daily.
But through teamwork and manpower people pushed the trailers out of the way, ensuring that people could make it into Yangon.
Hundreds of thousands of anti-coup protesters took to the streets amid a general strike. The protests followed a clear threat from the junta that it was prepared to use lethal force to crush what it branded as "anarchy".
The date – 22.2.2021 – was compared to the historic pro-democracy protests of August 8, 1988, when a previous generation faced brutal violence deployed by security forces.
The warning came after three demonstrators were shot dead over the weekend, and the funeral on Sunday for a young woman who died from bullet wounds at an earlier rally.
