Myanmar Army using battlefield weapons- allege Amnesty

Amnesty International  has accused the Myanmar's military government of increasingly using battlefield weapons against  protesters and conducting systematic, deliberate killings. The military “is using increasingly lethal tactics and weapons normally seen on the battlefield against peaceful protesters and bystanders across the country,” Amnesty International on Thursday said in a report. “By verifying more than 50 videos from the ongoing crackdown, Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab can confirm that security forces appear to be implementing planned, systematic strategies including the ramped-up use of lethal force. Many of the killings documented amount to extrajudicial executions,” the report said.

Unconfirmed report said additional deaths  on Wednesday and Thursday as police attempted to break up anti-coup protests in cities and towns across the country using tear gas and other weapons.Myanmar has been roiled by protests and other acts of civil disobedience since a Feb. 1 military coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi just as it was to start its second term. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian nation after five decades of military rule.

Myanmar has more than a dozen ethnic guerrilla armies, mostly in border areas, a legacy of decades-old struggles for greater autonomy from the central government. Many have formal or informal cease-fire agreements with the government, but armed encounters still occur. There has been speculation that some ethnic groups could form a de facto alliance with the protest movement to pressure the government.

The Junta spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun said that ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi accepted illegal payment worth $600,000 plus gold while in government adding that the information had been verified and many people were being questioned.Tun also said President Win Myint, plus several cabinet ministers, had also engaged in corruption and he had pressured the country's election commission not to act on the military's reports of irregularities.