Burma moves against opposition

BangkokPost.com from Agency reports

The Burmese military junta tightened the net on leaders of a rare string of protests on Thursday, raiding homes of known activists and their friends and distributing their photographs in a manhunt around Rangoon.

The regime also is employing menacing gangs of civilians to snuff out a rare wave of protests by pro-democracy activists against fuel price hikes, reports from Rangoon say.

The thugs have been unleashed even though the grind of everyday life, fear of being beaten up and a lack of belief in people's power as a weapon against a ruthless military junta suggest a string of protests by Burmese activists cannot snowball into a mass uprising.

On Wednesday, three trucks, each carrying about 20 tough-looking young men, were parked on either side of the road, watching for any protesters. About 20 plainclothes security officials roamed nearby sidewalks at the intersection, a traditional site for protests.

No demonstrations were known to have taken place on Wednesday in Rangoon, although there were reports of protests in two or three other towns. Information about them could not be independently confirmed.

Dozens of people have been detained, including several prominent pro-democracy activists many of whom are members of detained opposition leader Aung san Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

Demonstrations triggered by soaring prices began on Aug 19 and have continued almost daily - although they have dwindled from a few hundred people to a few dozen - and despite strong-arm tactics by the junta to supress them.

Tension was especially high at Hledan Junction in Burma's biggest city of Rangoon, where security officials and their civilian auxillaries clamped down on Tuesday on a protest within minutes of its start.

They pushed through crowds of onlookers to rough up about 15 demonstrators before tossing them into waiting trucks to take them away for detention, witnesses said.

While the protesters have shown no sign of giving up, analysts said they did not expect the momentum to last as the general public remained afraid to join in.

"The struggle thus far is one-sided, with numbers, organisation and will in the hands of the rulers," said Josef Silverstein, a Burma expert and retired professor of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The Eureopean Union (EU) on said it was concerned about recent arrests of leading activists and the "decision to detain individuals who were exercising their right to peaceful demonstration." (Agencies)