VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Demonstrators protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, February 19, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

Members of Myanmar ethnic groups protested on Saturday (Feb 20) in a show of opposition to the coup that ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, despite some misgivings about her commitment to their aspirations for autonomy, community representatives said.

Protests against the Feb 1 coup that overthrew the elected government of the veteran democracy campaigner have taken place across the diverse country, even though the military has promised to hold a new election and hand power to the winner.

The demonstrators are demanding the restoration of the elected government, the release of Suu Kyi and others and the scrapping of a 2008 constitution, drawn up under military supervision, that gives the army a decisive role in politics.

Ke Jung, a youth leader from the Naga minority and an organiser of the Saturday protest by the minorities in the main city of Yangon, said the protesters were also demanding a federal system.

"We can't form a federal country under dictatorship. We can't accept the junta," he told Reuters.

The protests have been more peaceful than the bloodily suppressed demonstrations during nearly 50 years of direct military rule up to 2011.

In addition to the protests, a civil disobedience campaign has paralysed much government business.

Myanmar has experienced insurgencies by ethnic minority factions since shortly after its independence from Britain in 1948 and the army has long held itself to be the only institution capable of preserving national unity.

Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, like the top generals, is a member of the majority Burman community. Her government promoted a peace process with insurgent groups but she came in for a storm of international criticism over the plight of the Muslim Rohingya minority after more than 700,000 fled a deadly 2017 crackdown//CNA