Myanmar tightens grip with mass arrests
1 hour, 6 minutes ago
YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar security forces raided a monastery and
arrested at least 100 Buddhist monks on Thursday, tightening their
grip after a violent crackdown on mass protests that left at least
four people dead.
The country's ruling generals reasserted their control after a
string of demonstrations led by the revered monks, whose presence
helped bring as many as 100,000 people onto the streets to rally
against the junta.
Witnesses said security forces stormed a monastery overnight in the
eastern part of Yangon, the country's main city. Windows were
smashed and bullet casings littered the ground, they said.
At least 100 monks were believed taken. Some who avoided arrest
returned after daybreak, bleeding from wounds to their shaven
heads. A few said they had got away by climbing into trees around
the monastery.
Witnesses said a second monastery nearby was also raided, but there
were no other details.
The raid came just hours after the regime, facing the biggest wave
of public anger in 20 years, made good on its vow to end the
demonstrations that have erupted in cities across this poor and
isolated nation.
Defying calls from the international community to pull back its
troops, police and security forces beat protesters and opened fire
to halt the rolling wave of demonstrations in Yangon.
Two monks were beaten to death and a third was shot dead while
wrestling with a soldier to try to take away his weapon, senior
Myanmar officials told AFP. A fourth person was shot dead, a
hospital source said.
It was the first time the generals have used violence since the
protests began, although there was no mass crackdown like that in
1988, when at least 3,000 people were killed to put down
demonstrations.
But the international community voiced outrage at the junta, who
have ruled the nation formerly known as Burma in one form or
another since 1962.
"France will not accept the gagging of Myanmar's opposition,"
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after meeting the head of
Myanmar's self-proclaimed government in exile, Sein Win, in
Paris.
The European Union and the United States said they were "deeply
troubled" by the crackdown. The UN Security Council urged the junta
to allow a UN envoy to visit.
There were several calls for China, Myanmar's main trading partner
and chief ally, to use its influence with the secretive regime.
China has publicly said it will not intervene but that it wants
stability in the country.
Yangon and the second city Mandalay remain under a dusk-to-dawn
curfew. Yangon's streets were deserted on Thursday morning, and
commuter buses avoided passing by the site where Wednesday's
clashes occurred.
Shop doors were closed, but inside people could be seen huddling
around short-wave radios, hoping to catch some news from foreign
media about the clampdown.
The unrest began last month when the junta drastically raised the
price of fuel overnight. The move left many here unable to afford
even transport to their jobs.
The initial protests -- rare enough in a country where the military
quickly crushes any show of dissent -- began with only a handful of
demonstrators.
But hundreds of people lined the streets to cheer them on. After
the monks joined the movement, numbers swelled and around 100,000
people have marched in Yangon daily since Monday.
