Myanmar Poets Square Off Against Junta's War On Words

Bangkok, June 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Jun, 2021 ) :Before he was killed, Khet Thi's poems railed eloquently against Myanmar's sudden coup, joining a deluge of protest verse celebrating democracy demonstrators and defying the military's brutal war on words.

As soldiers unleashed a violent crackdown on resistance to the army takeover, he implored the public to stand firm against what he saw as an existential threat to the country's future.

"We have to fight to win this battle," he wrote. "If we lose: North Korea. If we win: South Korea." Last month, scores of police and soldiers surrounded the home he shared with his wife and family in the central city of Shwebo.

They accused the poet -- who baked cakes and made ice cream to support his family -- of planning a series of bomb blasts, and demanded he give himself up.

The next day his wife Chaw Su was summoned to a hospital in Monywa around 80 kilometres (50 miles) away.

"I thought I would able to (bring) him some clothes," she told AFP.

But there was no need, according to a police officer, who told Chaw Su her husband was dead.

"I got only the dead body back," she told AFP.