Villagers shout slogans during a protest against a recent report of a commission which investigated the Letpadaung mine’s operations and a police crackdown last November that badly injured scores of protesters, during a visit by Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Tone village, an area near the mine in Monywa, 760 kilometers (450 miles) north of Yangon, central Myanmar, Thursday, March 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)
MONYWA, Myanmar— Hostile villagers have confronted opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during the second day of a trip to northwestern Myanmar to explain why she supports continuation of a mining project opposed by many local residents.
In talks held at the village level, Suu Kyi was unable Thursday to persuade her audience to agree with the conclusion of an official panel she headed that the national interest was best served by allowing continued operation of the Letpadaung copper mine, to encourage foreign investors to help the lagging economy.
At one point, residents barricaded their village with thorny brush and allowed Suu Kyi to enter only after she had shed some of her police escort and accompanying journalists.
The unwelcoming reception was virtually unprecedented for the heroine of the country’s pro-democracy movement.