Monks defy Burma junta - and heavy rains - to march in protest for fourth day

(EPA)

Monks prayed at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest temple of Burmese Buddhism, for 20 minutes in driving tropical rain

Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor of The Times

Thousands of people, including saffron-robed Buddhist monks, marched through knee-deep rain water in the centre of Rangoon today, in the fourth successive day of peaceful protests against the country’s military dictatorship.

The protest — the largest act of defiance against the ruling junta in a decade — began with a few hundred monks, carrying Buddhist pennants, who walked barefoot to the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon’s most famous landmark and the holiest temple of Burmese Buddhism.

After praying there for 20 minutes in driving tropical rain, their numbers grew as they continued to the commercial centre of Rangoon.

By the time they reached Rangoon City Hall, there was a crowd of 3,000 people, according to news agencies, half of them monks, the rest ordinary Burmese. At the front of the march was a human chain of 100 women, arm in arm, symbolically protecting the monks. They paused at the City Hall, chanting: “Peace and security will prevail. The people will not be harmed.”

Monks also held a public prayer meeting at a smaller pagoda on the outskirts of Rangoon, Burma’s former capital, as well as in the town of Pegu, 80km (50 miles) to the north.

There were no reports of injuries or arrests, and witnesses in Rangoon reported a less-obvious security presence than at some of the other demonstrations, which have taken place in cities across Burma since sudden rises in the prices of household goods last month.

Given the junta’s history of repression, there are fears that as the demonstrations grow in scale, so does the danger of a violent, even bloody, crackdown.

The BBC reported today that one activist organisation, the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks, had issued a strongly-worded statement describing the military government as "the enemy of the people".

In what the BBC said was the most explicit challenge yet to the Burmese government, the statement said that the monks would keep up their protests until they had "wiped the military dictatorship from the land of Burma".

Yesterday, the United Nations Special Envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, told the UN Security Council in New York of his alarm at the situation. “Undoubtedly, the developments over the last few weeks in Myanmar have raised serious concerns in the international community and once again underscore the urgency to step up our efforts to find solutions to the challenges facing the country,” he said.

Today a spokesman for the Government, which refers to the country by the name Myanmar, denied that it was considering drastic measures. “The Myanmar Government will not declare a state of emergency,” said Ye Htut, of the Information Ministry. “You can see the Government handles the situation peacefully.”

Thakin Chan Tun, a former Burmese ambassador and now an opponent of the junta, told The Irrawaddy, a dissident website in Thailand, that he anticipates a mass uprising. “Unless the Government wants to see a mass uprising, I want to urge them to enter into dialogue in order to solve the crisis in the country,” he said

The demonstrations were triggered in the middle of August when the Government raised the price of fuel oil by as much as 500 per cent. They were led by veterans of the 1988 struggle scores of whom were arrested; many more have gone into hiding. The authorities have cut off mobile telephone and land lines belonging to activists.

On September 5 hundred of monks who came out in support of the activists in the town of Pakokku were beaten up by soldiers and pro-Government militia men as they marched and chanted peacefully. When a delegation of government officials went to the pagoda to apologise, they were taken briefly hostage by the Buddhists.

Monks across the country reacted with fury, and senior abbots demanded an apology for the incident, setting this week as the deadline. If no apology is offered, they threatened to carry out further demonstrations and to refuse to accept alms from members of the military — a humiliating sanction amounting to excommunication. This week monks have marched with their alms bowls held upside down as a symbol of their boycott.

The present military leadership took over after the bloody suppression of nationwide democracy demonstrations in 1988 when an estimated 3,000 protesters died, many of them young students.

In response, the Government held democratic elections in 1990 which were won overwhelmingly by the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, later winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. But the junta did not acknowledged the election results and has held on to power ever since, despite denunciations and appeals by Western governments and human rights organisations.