Myanmar junta arrests 50 after new protest

Agence France Presse: - Hla Hla Htay Mon
Mon 27 Aug 2007

About 50 pro-democracy activists were arrested Monday outside Yangon, as the Myanmar junta clamped down on dissent following a series of protests last week against a sharp hike in fuel prices.

The protest was the latest in a series of bold demonstrations against the military, which for 45 years has ruled this impoverished country with an iron fist and kept a tight lid on any dissent.
The activists marched in silence from a market in Bago, a town about 75 kilometres (45 miles) northeast of Yangon, witnesses told AFP by telephone.

They did not chant slogans or wave banners, but people on the sidewalks clapped as they walked by. After about 30 minutes, the entire group was arrested and taken to local authorities for questioning, witnesses said.

The activists were all released after two hours, in part because a crowd of about 100 bystanders had followed them to make sure the authorities would not mistreat them, according to Kyaw Win, one of the protest leaders.

“People who had gathered to watch our protest followed us after we were arrested. The guarded us and waited outside the authorities’ offices until we were released,” Kyaw Win told AFP by telephone.

Authorities made them promise not to stage any more rallies. Kyaw Win said they were not mistreated in custody.

He and other members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said they would continue to protest against the August 15 fuel price hike, which doubled transport costs overnight.

“The NLD will stand in front of the people, because we NLD members want to solve their problems,” he said.

The march in Bago came after four days of protests last week, mainly in Yangon, over the price increase.

A Myanmar government official told a seminar in Singapore that the price hike was needed to cut back on government fuel subsidies.

“The government just wants to relieve some of the burden to the customer, to the user,” said Soe Myint, director-general of the energy planning department.

Transport costs doubled after the fuel price increase, leaving many workers in Yangon unable to afford even the cost of bus fare to their jobs.

Plain-clothes security forces have been deployed across Yangon to try to quell the protests, leaving the nation’s economic hub shrouded in fear.

State media said 56 people had been arrested over last week’s protests, but Thailand-based political dissidents on Monday said it was at least 100.

“I am sure those arrested are now being tortured by the junta,” said Tate Naing, of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

“We know from firsthand experience that those arrested in Burma are always brutally tortured — both physically and psychologically — immediately upon arrest,” he added.

Among those arrested last week was Min Ko Naing, who is considered Myanmar’s most prominent pro-democracy leader after detained opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Min Ko Naing was arrested along with 12 activists for leading about 500 protesters in a peaceful march in Yangon on August 19 — the biggest anti-government rally here in at least nine years.

Myanmar’s state media has said only that authorities were interrogating Min Ko Naing and the 12 others and that the junta would take legal action against them. Most of them have already spent more than a decade in prison.

The 13 were members of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students group, which is made up of former student leaders who led an uprising against military rule in 1988.

That uprising, which initially began as a protest over Myanmar’s harsh economic conditions, ended with soldiers firing into a crowd of students, killing hundreds if not thousands.

The uprising led to the creation of the NLD, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. The party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never recognised the result.