Mandalay-based activists urge public to boycott junta-sponsored Thingyan festivities

Anti-dictatorship activists in Mandalay have asked people not to participate in celebrations for the Myanmar New Year—or Thingyan—in mid-April which are being arranged by the military council amid escalating violence perpetrated by their armed forces nationwide. 

Junta-controlled newspapers reported that a meeting was held at the Central Region Military Command in Mandalay on March 18 and plans for Thingyan celebrations in the city were discussed. 

The military has reportedly already started construction of a “mandat,” or streetside stage from which people splash water into crowds of people in accordance with the festival, in front of the city development committee office. 

“They have started planning to build stages around the Mandalay moat,” a youth activist told Myanmar Now. “They’re determined to organise celebrations. They want to show to the world that peace has been restored.”

Daily clashes continue to break out between the Myanmar army and resistance forces in Chin and Karenni states and Sagaing and Magway regions, as well as other areas across the country, as the military attempts to crush opposition to its coup regime, which attempted to seize power in February 2021. 

During this time, the military has killed nearly 1,700 civilians, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Villages have also been torched by the junta’s forces and hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the ongoing crisis. 

Following bloody crackdowns on mass demonstrations last year, the Myanmar public has also launched multiple “silent strikes”—in which people empty the streets and stay home—in defiance of the military, including on the anniversary of the coup. Announcements for a possible “Thingyan Strike” could come nearer to the festival’s April 13 start date to give the military less time to try to sabotage the resistance effort, activists said. 

“We have lost Thingyan twice, once in the pandemic and once after the coup,” a prominent poet told Myanmar Now. However, he emphasised that he considers the death of youth and resistance fighters across the country to have been a greater loss than that of the holiday at “the heart” of Mandalay.

The poet speculated that although the public would not likely partake in this year’s celebrations, the military would hire people from families sympathetic to the military to attend dressed as “civilians” to give the appearance of normalcy. 

Last year, the military council also attempted to organise similar Myanmar New Year celebrations in Mandalay, but were forced to demolish a newly constructed stage after unprecedented opposition from the people. Festivities were instead held inside Mandalay Palace for junta-linked families and their supporters.

“Any artist or celebrity who takes part in the military’s fake Thingyan [this year] will go down in history as an enemy of the people,” the poet added.

As in Mandalay, military authorities in Yangon have also started building a Thingyan stage in front of City Hall, a building occupied by junta forces. 

The military-run health department has announced that gatherings of up to 400 people will be allowed during the Thingyan period, citing decreased Covid-19 infection rates. 

Myanmar Now reported last Friday that the virus remains rife in displaced persons’ camps in particular, where local sources in Karenni State have estimated that around half of the people in these sites have been infected with Covid-19 in recent weeks.