Violent Crackdown Launched in Myanmar
09/26/2007
Violent Crackdown Launched in MyanmarEmail this Story
Sep 26, 5:30 PM (ET)
(AP) In this photo released by the National League for Democracy-Liberated Area, Buddhist monk walks...
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YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Security forces in Myanmar opened fire on demonstrators Wednesday, and witnesses said police beat and dragged away dozens of Buddhist monks. The government said at least one person was killed, while dissident groups and media reported up to eight dead.
The military junta's announcement on state radio and television was the first acknowledgment of the use of force against protesters and its first admission of bloodshed after a month of mostly peaceful demonstrations against the government.
The United States and the European Union condemned the attacks and called on the military rulers to open a dialogue with pro-democracy leaders, including detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a joint statement on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The U.N. Security Council planned to hold closed consultations on Myanmar later Wednesday, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dispatched a special envoy to the region.
(AP) In this image made from television, security forces shoot tear gas into the air in an attempt to...
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Ban urged the junta "to exercise utmost restraint toward the peaceful demonstrations taking place, as such action can only undermine the prospects for peace, prosperity and stability in Myanmar," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
About 300 monks and activists were arrested on the ninth straight day of protests in Yangon, dissidents said. The number could not be independently confirmed.
Myanmar's leaders had warned the monks to stop the protests after some 100,000 people joined marches Monday in the largest anti-government demonstrations since a 1988 democracy uprising was violently suppressed in the country, which is also known as Burma.
The junta said security forces opened fire after a crowd of 10,000 people, including what it described as "so-called monks," failed to disperse at Yangon's Sule Pagoda. It said police used minimum force.
The dead man, age 30, was hit by a bullet, the statement said. It also said two men aged 25 and 27 and a 47-year-old woman suffered wounds when police fired, but did not specify their injuries.
(AP) In this image made from television, security forces shoot tear gas into the air in an attempt to...
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Witnesses who were known to The Associated Press said they had seen two women and one young man with gunshot wounds in the chaotic confrontations.
Khim Maung Win, deputy editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a small anti-junta broadcaster based in Oslo, Norway, said eight people - five monks and three civilians - were reported killed and at least four seriously wounded.
Zin Linn, information minister for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Myanmar's self-styled government-in-exile, said at least five monks were killed.
An organization of exiled political activists in Thailand, the National League for Democracy-Liberated Area, said three monks had been confirmed dead, and about 17 wounded.
The reports could not be independently confirmed by AP.
Voice of Burma's chief editor, Aye Chan Naing, said democracy activists are using the Internet and cell phones to funnel news out of Myanmar, but added that he did not want to discuss details because of the military's control of the country's communications.
"Mobile phones are essential. Mobile phones are the way they (their reporters) can report from the ground. This morning they (the military) cut off some mobile phones, so we can't get a hold of some of our people," he said.
Earlier in the week, Naing said activists sometimes transmit video one frame at a time over the Web and also hide information within seemingly innocous e-mails.
The security forces had fired warning shots and tear gas to try to disperse the crowds of demonstrators while hauling away the defiant, cinnamon-robed monks into waiting military trucks - the first mass arrests since protests erupted Aug. 19. Monks are highly revered in Myanmar.
In a joint statement condemning the attack on protesters, the United States and EU urged the Security Council to "discuss this situation urgently and consider further steps including sanctions." It also urged China, India and Southeast Asian nations to use their influence to end the crackdown.
"The European Union and the United States express their solidarity with the people of Burma/Myanmar," the statement said, calling on the junta to halt violent and open talks with Suu Kyi and others.
On Tuesday, President Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against Myanmar, accusing the military dictatorship of imposing "a 19-year reign of fear" that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who was appointed as the U.N.'s independent expert on human rights in Myanmar seven years ago, told the AP the confrontation between the monks and the security forces will end in "a disaster" unless the international community makes a concerted effort to stop further escalation.
"You will have a real threat to security in the area because you will have a regime that is politically unstable for many years to come," Pinheiro said by telephone from Brown University in Providence, R.I.
The use of force will almost certainly put pressure on Myanmar's top economic and diplomatic supporter, China, which is eager to burnish its international image before next year's Olympics in Beijing.
When faced with a similar crisis in 1988, Myanmar brutally suppressed a student-led democracy uprising. Soldiers shot into crowds of peaceful demonstrators, killing thousands.
On Tuesday, the junta banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a 9 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks.
As the ninth day of unrest began Wednesday, the crowd of monks and students - along with members of Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party - set off from the Shwedagon Pagoda to the Sule Pagoda in the heart of the city, but were blocked by military trucks along the way.
Other groups of marchers fanned out into downtown streets with armed security forces trying to disperse them. There were reports of destruction of property but it was unclear whether this was carried out by the demonstrators or pro-junta thugs, who were seen among the troops and police. Witnesses said an angry mob at the pagoda burned two police motorcycles.
"They will kill us, monks and nuns. Maybe we should go back to normal life as before," said a young nun, her back pressed against the back of a building near the scenes of chaos.
But a student at a roadside watching the arrival of the demonstrators said: "If they are brave, we must be brave. They risk their lives for us."
The two asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals.
Other protesters carried flags emblazoned with the fighting peacock, a key symbol of the democracy movement in Myanmar.
Soldiers with assault rifles had earlier blocked all four major entrances to the soaring Sule Pagoda, one of the most sacred in Myanmar, and sealed other flash points of anti-government protests.
In Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, more than 800 monks, nuns and laymen played a cat-and-mouse game with some 100 soldiers who tried to stop them marching from the Mahamuni Paya Pagoda, which they had tried to enter earlier.
The demonstrations began after the government raised fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the repressive military rule that has gripped the country since 1962.
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