Myanmar cracks down on protesters

Buddhist monks and their supporters take part in a protest march in Yangon
©AFP

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar security forces beat hundreds of protesters with batons Wednesday and arrested dozens more as they moved to crush nine days of mass rallies that have shaken the country's military rulers.

A day after warning that the biggest show of dissent here in 20 years would no longer be tolerated, police baton-charged hundreds of students and Buddhist monks who had defied the decree to gather at Myanmar's holiest shrine.

Witnesses said dozens of protesters, including some of the revered monks who have helped turn public anger into a mass nationwide movement in just a few days, were detained during the clashes in the main city of Yangon.

After the crowd scattered in the frenzy of beatings, armed soldiers used barbed wire to cordon off the area around the Shewdagon Pagoda. About 500 monks were believed to be holed up inside.

Buddhist monks marching in protest in Yangon
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It was the first time authorities in this impoverished and secretive country, which has been in the grip of the ruling generals for decades, had used violence to break up the recent series of protests.

But a human chain surrounded 200 monks who gathered in a separate demonstration in Yangon, where crowds of 100,000 people have taken to the streets in recent days in defiance of the junta.

Troops fired tear gas as the number of demonstrators started to grow.

The clash conjured memories of the last big showdown between the people and the junta in 1988, when similar mass demonstrations ended with security forces opening fire. Around 3,000 people were killed.

Protests have also been held in other cities in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in recent days. It was not immediately known if security forces elsewhere were also cracking down.

A Buddhist monk speaks to the crowd of supporters
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Authorities had ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew late Tuesday, and troops poured into the streets Wednesday morning, stretching barbed wire across roads and standing guard at pagodas to try to stave off any new effort to protest.

Troops also deployed outside the headquarters of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the opposition party headed by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi -- a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has long been under house arrest.

"We will continue our marching. We are doing this for the well-being and safety of the people," one senior monk told AFP.

"We have already decided to risk our lives for the people, although there might be some clashes," he said.

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, piling on the misery in one of Asia's poorest nations.

A picture of Aung San Suu Kyi hangs on the wall of the opposition party National League of Democracy headquarters in Yangon
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The initial protests -- rare enough in a country where the military quickly crushes any show of dissent -- began with only a handful of demonstrators marching through the streets.

But hundreds of people began lining the streets to cheer them on. After the monks joined the movement, the numbers of protesters swelled. Around 100,000 people marched in Yangon on Monday and Tuesday.

The possibility of a violent reaction from the regime has drawn sharp criticism of the regime from the international community.

At the United Nations this week, US President George W. Bush announced new sanctions on Myanmar.

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear," he told the UN General Assembly.

Supporters of the Buddhist monks march down a street in downtown Yangon
©AFP