BANGKOK — Myanmar’s month-old military regime fired the country’s ambassador to the United Nations on Saturday, a day after he gave an impassioned speech to the U.N. General Assembly in Geneva, pleading for international help in restoring democracy to his homeland.
The ambassador, U Kyaw Moe Tun, ended his speech with a three-finger salute, a gesture from the “Hunger Games” films that has become a symbol of pro-democratic defiance for protesters in Myanmar and, before that, in neighboring Thailand.
State television announced his firing, saying he had “betrayed the country and spoken for an unofficial organization which doesn’t represent the country and had abused the power and responsibilities of an ambassador.”
Mr. Kyaw Moe Tun’s speech buoyed Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, which has held protests every day since Feb. 1, when the military took control of the…
