USDP signboards vandalised with red paint in Pegu town

Friday, 15 October 2010 23:08 Salai Tun

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Signboards belonging to Burma’s main junta-backed political party were vandalised with red paint in Pegu Division on Thursday morning, forcing party members to scrape them clean, witnesses said.

About 10 Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) signboards in Thayarwaddy Township, 60 miles (97 kilometres) north of Rangoon, including one on the house of USDP candidate Tin Soe, one at the bus stop near Alelgone Pagoda and another on the District Peace and Development Council’s offices were painted red.

Obscene language covered some of the signs, a witness said.

The Township Police Force and USDP members have made enquiries about the case, but no arrests had been made.

The USDP, another junta-backed group – the National Unity Party – and the Democratic Party (Myanmar) will contest in Thayarwaddy constituency in the forthcoming election.

Burma’s ruling junta backs the USDP, which was transformed from the now-defunct ultra-nationalist Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), notorious for its bloody attacks on opposition and democratic forces including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her entourage in Depayin, northern Burma in 2003.

At least 5,000 USDA members gathered in a co-ordinated attack and beat to death more than 70 National League for Democracy supporters during Suu Kyi’s roadshow around the country in May of that year. Suu Kyu aided by bodyguards managed to elude the attackers but was arrested soon after the massacre.

USDA members also aided the bloody suppression of the “Saffron Revolution”, so named as it was led by monks protesting against up to 66 per cent fuel price rises in 2007. The protests expanded but were brutally suppressed by the Burmese Army.