Four workers are wounded in yesterday’s attack against the Thaukyegat hydropower project, Bago Division. In Kayah State, a man stopped for questioning blows himself up, wounding four police officers. Some 20 top military officers retire, including the prime minister, in order to run for office.

Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A series of blasts hit a hydropower project in Bago (south-central Myanmar), wounding four workers. In the eastern State of Kayah, a man stopped for questioning by police detonated a bomb, killing himself and wounding four officers who were close by. Both attacks, which took place yesterday, are but the latest in a series of violent episodes to have hit the former Burma in the past few weeks. In the meantime, a number of top military officers are retiring in order to run for office in elections scheduled for later this year.

This morning police stopped a man in Kayah State. Before he could be questioned, he set off an explosive device, an official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. One person, the suicide bomber, died and four police officers were wounded.

“A man of about 30 years old exploded the bomb and killed himself. Four police agents beside him were injured during the blast at the police station," said a resident of Loikaw town in Kayah State, some 400 kilometres from Yangon. It was unclear exactly why he was stopped and if he had intended to commit suicide.

Elsewhere, three grenade attacks hit the Thaukyegat hydropower project in Bago Division, about 220 kilometres northeast of the country's main city of Yangon, wounding four workers.

The Myanmar company behind the project, Asia World Construction, is involved in the controversial Myitsone dam project in Kachin State, which was hit by a series of bombs blasts on 17 April.

The latest wave of violence, especially the bombs against dams, appears aimed at the heart of the Myanmar economy.

The country’s ruling junta has been criticised for selling out the national interests by selling off its natural resources through agreements with energy-hungry China and India.

Although the country has known violence in the past, the recent episodes are exceptional. Myanmar is under the tight control of a military dictatorship that censors opposition groups and human rights activists, and is involved in a fight with groups representing ethnic minorities in some of the states of the federation.

Even the former capital of Yangon, which is the country’s financial hub, has not been spared. On 15 April, during the Water Festival that marks Burmese New Year three bombs killed about 30 people, ten according to official sources, with more than 170 people injured.

In the meantime, the military junta is organising elections for later this year (October-November) in order to give itself a new respectability.

As part of this operation, more than 20 senior Burmese government ministers, including the prime minister, General Thein Sein, retired yesterday from their military posts in a move that analysts claim will allow them to focus on this year’s elections.

Internal sources said that Myanmar’s strongman, General Than Shwe, picked the current prime minister, as the leader of a new pro-junta political party that will contest the general election. The apparent goal is to clean up the regime’s image, tarnished after more than 20 years in power.

The poll, whose outcome is a foregone conclusion, is likely to strengthen the regime.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest and cannot vote or be elected.

Her party, the National League for Democracy, has decided not to run in the election to protest against the junta-drafted constitution of 2008, which guarantees the military 25 per cent of the seats, with the remaining 75 per cent going to former military officers as well as regime officials or cronies.

• myanmar
• military
• regime
• human
• rights
• ethnic
• minorities
• economy
• dams