‘We just wanted to warn the staff members of that office that they did not have the authority to terrorize civilians,’ a member of the group said.
Guerrilla fighters threw a grenade at an Electric Power Corporation (EPC) office in Naypyitaw on Saturday after its staff members accompanied junta soldiers on visits to neighbourhoods to intimidate people into paying their electricity bills.
The grenade exploded inside the office in Ottara Thiri Township at around noon, a member of the Phoenix Urban Guerilla Force who gave his name as Tayza told Myanmar Now, adding that the group planned the attack for the weekend to ensure bystanders would not be harmed.
Staff members from the office may have been injured, he added. “We just wanted to warn the staff members of that office that they did not have the authority to terrorize civilians as they pleased,” he said.
“Ninety percent of civilians do not want to pay money to the dictatorship,” he added. “So they started threatening people with weapons to pay those bills.”
Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment.
People across the country have refused to pay their utility bills as part of a mass boycott movement aimed at choking off the junta’s sources of funding.
Soldiers and EPC staff have visited homes across the capital recently to warn people that they have until November 16 to pay their electricity bills.
One local from Dekkhina Thiri Township told Myanmar Now that on November 1 seven soldiers arrived on his street in a light truck and warned him to pay his bill.
Another local from the township said the intimidation tactics were having an effect.
“The electricity offices have been overcrowded these days as they said that November 16 would be the last day to pay the electricity bills,” the local said. “They’re still making announcements in the neighbourhood from trucks.”
Also on November 1, a local chapter of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) said it attacked an electricity office in Naypyitaw’s Tatkon Township. It is unclear if there were casualties or how much damage was caused.
Electricity offices across Yangon have also been targeted in attacks.
In recent weeks attackers in Naypyitaw detonated bombs at the office of the military’s procurement director and the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department.
source myanmar-now