ေလာင္စာဆီေစဵး ဴပန္ခဵေပးေရး ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲ လႁပ္ရႀားမႁ ဒိုင္ယာရီ (၂၀၀၇ ခုႎႀစ္၊ ဳသဂုတ္လ ၂၄ ရက္ ေသာဳကာေနႚ)

၂၀၀၇ ခုႎႀစ္၊ ဳသဂုတ္လ ၂၄ ရက္ေနႚ ရန္ကုန္မႀာ ဴဖစ္ပၾားခဲ့တဲ့ ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲ သတင္း ဴဖစ္စဥ္ အကဵဥ္းနဲႚ လႁပ္ရႀားမႁ ဓာတ္ပံုေတၾကို စုေဆာင္း တင္ဴပ ေပးလိုက္တာ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။

ေလာင္စာဆီေစဵး ဴပန္ခဵေပးေရး ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲ လႁပ္ရႀားမႁ ဒိုင္ယာရီ (၂၀၀၇ ခုႎႀစ္၊ ဳသဂုတ္လ ၂၄ ရက္ ေသာဳကာေနႚ)

ယမန္ႚေနႚ ညက ပုန္းေအာင္း တိမ္းေရႀာင္ ေနတဲ့ ၈၈ ေကဵာင္းသား ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ ကိုေဌး႔ကယ္ရဲႚ အကို ကိုေအာင္ေကဵာ္ဦးနဲႚ ၈၈ မဵႂိးဆက္ ေကဵာင္းသားမဵား အဖၾဲႚက မေအးေအးထၾန္းကို စစ္အစိုးရက ထပ္မံ ထိန္းသိမ္း လိုက္႓ပီး၊ နံနက္ ၁၀ ေလာက္ကမႀ ဴပန္လၾတ္ ေပးလိုက္တယ္။ သူတုိႚကို ကိုေဌး႔ကယ္ ဘယ္မႀာ ရႀိလဲ ဆုိတာကို စစ္ေဆး ေမးဴမန္း ခဲ့တယ္လိုႚ ၈၈ ေကဵာင္းသား အဖၾဲႚဝင္ တဦးက ေဴပာဴပတယ္။ (အဲန္အမ္ဂဵီ)

၈၈ မဵႂိးဆက္ ေကဵာင္းသား မိသားစု ေတၾရဲႚ ေနအိမ္ ေတၾက ညဘက္ ညဘက္ ေတၾမႀာ အာဏာပိုင္ ေတၾက ဝင္ေရာက္ စစ္ေဆးမႁေတၾ ဴပႂလုပ္ ေနလိုႚ အေႎႀာင့္အယႀက္ ဴဖစ္ရေဳကာင္း ေကဵာင္းသား ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ ကိုဂဵင္မီရဲႚ မိခင္ ေဒၞအမာႌၾန္ႚက ေဴပာဆုိ လိုက္ပၝတယ္။ ( ဒီဗီၾဘီ)

မေနႚက ညပိုင္း ကလည္း ၈၈ မဵိႂးဆက္ ေကဵာင္းသား ဴဖစ္တဲ့ ကိုလႀမဵိႂးေနာင္၊ ၈၈ ေကဵာင္းသူေတၾ ဴဖစ္တဲ့ မနီလာသိန္း၊ မခင္မိုးလၾင္၊ မမီးမီး တိုႛရဲႚ ေနအိမ္ ေတၾကို အာဏာပိုင္ ေတၾက ဝင္ေရာက္ ရႀာေဖၾ တာေတၾ လုပ္ခဲ့ ေပမယ့္၊ ဒီလူေတၾ ကေတာ့ သူတိုႚ အိမ္မႀာ ဴပန္မအိပ္ ဳကဘူးလိုႛ ေဴပာပၝတယ္။ ဒၝ့အဴပင္ ကိုထင္ေကဵာ္ရဲႚ အစ္မ ဴဖစ္သူ ကိုလည္း စစ္ေဆး ေမးဴမန္းဖိုႛ အတၾက္ ေခၞေဆာင္ သၾားတယ္ လိုႛလည္း သိရ ပၝတယ္။ (ဗီၾအိုေအ)

ဧရာဝတီတိုင္း ပုသိမ္ ႓မိႂႚသစ္ေစဵး ေရႀႚမႀာ ေလာင္စာဆီနဲႚ ကုန္ေစဵးႎႁန္း ႒ကီးဴမင့္မႁကို ကန္ႚကၾက္သည့္ အေနနဲႚ "ဆီေစဵးအတက္ ဴပည္သူအခက္" လိုႚ ေရးထားတဲ့ ပိုစကာကိုင္ တကုိယ္ေတာ္ ဆႎၬဴပတဲ့ ကိုေအးဝင္း ၁၀ မိနစ္ခန္ႚ ဆႎၬဴပ အ႓ပီးမႀာ အဖမ္း ခံလိုက္ရ။ (ဒီဗီၾဘီနဲႚ ေခတ္႓ပိႂင္)

နံနက္ ၁၁ နာရီ ေလာက္မႀာ လူအခၾင့္အေရး ကာကၾယ္ ဴမၟင့္တင္သူ ဦးဴမင့္ေအးကို သူႚ ေနအိမ္က အထၾက္ လမ္းထိပ္ ကေန မဝတ ဥကၠႉက ေစာင့္႓ပီး ကဵႂိကၠဆံကုိ ေခၞသၾားမယ္ ဆုိကာ ဖမ္းဆီး ေခၞေဆာင္သၾား။ ( ဒီဗီၾဘီနဲႚ အဲန္အမ္ဂဵီ)

ဒီမနက္ (၈) နာရီ ေလာက္မႀာ အာဏာပုိင္ ေတၾနဲႛ ဳကံံ့ခိုင္ေရး အဖၾဲႚဝင္ ေတၾက ေတာင္ဒဂုံ ႓မိႂႚနယ္ အဖၾဲႚခဵႂပ္ဝင္ ၃ ဦးကုိ ရပ္ကၾက္ (၇၀) ထိပ္ လမ္းဆုံမႀာ ဖမ္းဆီး ခဲ့ပၝတယ္။ ဖမ္းဆီး ခံရသူေတၾ ကေတာ့ ကုိမင္းမင္းဦး၊ ကုိသိန္းေဌးနဲႛ ကုိတင္ေမာင္ဳကည္တုိႛ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။ ကုိတင္ေမာင္ဳကည္ နဲႛအတူ လမ္းေလ႖ာက္ ထၾက္လာတဲ့ ဇနီးသည္ရယ္၊ တႎႀစ္ခၾဲ အ႟ၾယ္ သမီးငယ္ ကုိပၝ ဖမ္းဆီး ေခၞေဆာင္ သၾားပၝတယ္။

ကုိသိန္းေဌးဟာ ဆိုကၠားသမား ဴဖစ္႓ပီး ဧ႓ပီလ ၂၂ ရက္ေနႛ ကုန္ေစဵးႎႁန္း ကဵဆင္းေရး ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲမႀာ ပၝဝင္ ခဲ့တဲ့ အတၾက္ အဖမ္း ခံရဖူးသူ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။ ကုိမင္းမင္းဦး ကေတာ့ ကားစပယ္ယာ ဴဖစ္႓ပီး၊ သူႛရဲႚ အလုပ္ကုိ သၾားဖိုႛ ကားေပၞ အတက္မႀာ ႟ိုက္ႎႀက္ ခံရ႓ပီး အဖမ္းဆီး ခံရတာ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။ သူတိုႚ ငၝးဦးကုိ ဴပည္ထဲေရး၊ စရဖ၊ ေထာက္လႀမ္းေရး ေမာ္ေတာ္ ဆိုင္ကယ္ေတၾ ဆယ္စီးေလာက္နဲႛ စစ္ကား ႎႀစ္စီးက ေတာင္ဒဂုံ (၇၀) ရပ္ကၾက္ လမ္းဆုံမႀာ ပိတ္႓ပီး ဖမ္းဆီး ခဲ့တာ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။ ဒၝ့အဴပင္ ဒိုင္နာကား တစီးေပၞ မႀာလဲ ေကာ္လံကတုံး အကဵႈ၊ ပေလကပ္ လုံခဵည္ေတၾ ဝတ္ဆင္ ထားတဲ့ ဳကံ့ဖၾံႚ အသင္းဝင္ ေတၾလဲ ေတၾႚရ တယ္လိုႚ မဵက္ဴမင္ ေတၾက ေဴပာဴပ ပၝတယ္။

ေတာင္ဒဂုံ႓မိႂႚနယ္ အာဏာပို္င္ေတၾက ေတာင္ဒဂုံ (၅၆) ရပ္ကၾက္ လမ္းဆုံမႀာ လူ ၄ ဦးကုိ ဖမ္္းဆီးခဲ့ပၝတယ္။ သူတုိႛကေတာ့ ဦးေစာလၾင္၊ ဦးသိန္းဴမင့္ထၾန္း၊ ကုိႌၾန္ႛဝင္းနဲႛ ကုိေအာင္ေဇာ္ဦးတိုႛ ဴဖစ္တယ္လိုႛ စုံစမ္း သိရႀိရ ပၝတယ္။။ ( ဒီဗီၾဘီ)

မၾန္းလၾဲ ၂ နာရီ ခန္ႚမႀာ ဗိုလ္ခဵႂပ္ ေအာင္ဆန္းလမ္း မီးရထား ႟ံုးနဲႚ စင္ထရယ္ ဟုိတယ္ေရႀႚမႀာ လူေပၝင္း ၂၀ ေလာက္ ဆႎၬဴပခဲ့ရာ၊ မငယ္၊ ဦးေစာလႁိင္၊ ေအာင္ေဇာ္ဦး၊ မဵႂိးမင္းသိန္း၊ ဴမင့္ထၾန္းနဲႚ ထၾန္းထၾန္းဦးတုိႚ ဖမ္းဆီးခံရ။

၉၈ ေကဵာင္းသား လႁပ္ရႀားမႁ ေတၾမႀာ ပၝဝင္ခဲ့တဲ့ ေကဵာင္းသူေဟာင္း တဦး ဴဖစ္တဲ့ မႎုိဘယ္လ္ေအးကို သူႚ ေနအိမ္မႀာ လာေရာက္ ဖမ္းဆီးသၾား။ (အဲန္အမ္ဂဵီ)

တာေမၾတၾင္ ၈၈ မဵႂိးဆက္ ေကဵာင္းသားေတၾ၊ အဖၾဲႚခဵႂပ္ ပၝတီ ဝင္ေတၾနဲႚ အဴခား လႁပ္ရႀား သူေတၾ ပူးေပၝင္း႓ပီး လူထု ေဟာေဴပာ ဴပႂလုပ္ရန္ ဆႎၬဴပသူ ေတၾက စီစဥ္ ထားေသာ္လည္း ဳကံ့ဖၾံႚ၊ စၾမ္းအားရႀင္နဲႚ လံုဴခံႂေရးေတၾ အဴပည့္ ခဵထား သလို၊ ဳကံ့ဖၾံႚနဲႚ စၾမ္းအားရႀင္ ေတၾက ဆႎၬ ဴပသူလို ဟန္ေဆာင္ကာ အဳကမ္းဖက္မႁေတၾ ဖန္တီး႓ပီး ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲကို လမ္းလၿဲမည္၊ အာဏာပိုင္ ေတၾကလည္း အဳကမ္းဖက္ အင္အားသံုး ႓ဖိႂခၾင္း မည္ပံု ရႀိတာေဳကာင့္ မလုပ္ ဴဖစ္ခဲ့ေဳကာင္း သိရ။ (ဒီဗီၾဘီနဲႚ ဗီၾအိုေအ)

ရန္ကုန္႓မိႂႚ ႓မိႂႚေတာ္ ခန္းမ အေပၞထပ္နဲႛ ေအာက္ထပ္မႀာ စစ္သား၊ ရဲတပ္သား ေတၾနဲႛ လုံဴခံႂေရး တင္းတင္းဳကပ္ဳကပ္ လုပ္ထားတဲ့ ဳကားက ႓မိႂႚေတာ္ ခန္းမ ေရႀႚမႀာ ေလာင္စာဆီ ေစဵးႎႁန္း ကဵဆင္းေရး ဆႎၬ ဴပပၾဲ ဴပႂလုပ္တဲ့ ေဒၞစန္းစန္းဴမင့္ ဦးေဆာင္တဲ့ အိမ္ရႀင္မ (၂၀) ေလာက္နဲႛ အမဵႂိးသား (၃) ဦး ေလာက္ကုိ ဳကံံံ့ဖံၾႚ အသင္းဝင္ (၅၀) ေလာက္က ဒီကေနႛ ေနႛလည္ပုိင္းက ဳကမ္းဳကမ္းတမ္းတမ္း ဖမ္းဆီး႓ပီး ႓မိႂႚေတာ္ ခန္းမ ထဲကို ေခၞေဆာင္ သၾားတယ္။ ႓မိႂႚေတာ္ ခန္းမ ေရႀႚက အဖမ္းအဆီး ခံရမႁမႀာ အသက္ (၆၁) ႎႀစ္ အ႟ၾယ္ ေဒၞစန္းစန္းဴမင့္နဲႛ ေဒၞခင္မာခဵႂိ တိုႛလဲ ပၝဝင္ တယ္လိုႛ စုံစမ္း သိရႀိရ။

ဴပည္သူ ေ႟ၾးခဵယ္ ထားတဲ့ ဴပည္သူႛ ကိုယ္စားလႀယ္ေတာ္ေတၾ အေနနဲႚ အေထၾေထၾ အဳကပ္အတည္း ေတၾနဲႚ ရင္ဆိုင္ ေနရတဲ့ ဴပည္သူေတၾ ဘက္က မားမားမတ္မတ္ ရပ္တည္ ဦးေဆာင္မႁ ေပးသင့္႓ပီလိုႛ ကုန္ေစဵးႎႁန္း ကဵဆင္းေရး ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲ ဦးေဆာင္သူ ကိုထင္ေကဵာ္က တိုက္တၾန္း ေဴပာဆို လိုက္ပၝတယ္။ ဒၝအဴပင့္ ၈၈ ေကဵာင္းသား ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ ေတၾကို အဴမန္ဆံုး ဴပန္လၾတ္ ေပးဖုိႚ ထင္ေကဵာ္ ဆုိတဲ့ ေကာင္ မဳကာခင္ လူထုေရႀႚ ထၾက္လာ မယ္လုိႚလည္း ေဴပာဆုိ သၾားပၝတယ္။

မေလးရႀားမႀာ ကဵင္းပေနတဲ့ မာေဒးကား ေဘာလံုး ႓ပိႂင္၊ မေလးရႀား - ဴမန္မာ ပၾဲတၾင္ လမ္းေလ႖ာက္ ဆႎၬဴပမႁ မဵားကို ေထာက္ခံ ဆႎၬဴပ ေနသူမဵား။

"အခု ဖမ္းႎုိင္တယ္။ ကဵေနာ္ တုိႛကုိ ပစ္သတ္ ႎုိင္ပၝတယ္။ ဒၝေပမဲ့ ကဵေနာ္ တုိႛဟာ တရား မ႖တမႁကို ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ လၾတ္လပ္ဴခင္းကုိ ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ ကဵေနာ္တိုႚရဲႚ ဝိညာဥ္ ကဵန္ခဲ့ ပၝလိမ့္မယ္။ ဒီနံရံမႀာ လၾတ္လပ္ဴခင္းကုိ ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ သူေတၾ၊ တရား မ႖တဴခင္းကုိ ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ သူေတၾ၊ ဒီမုိကေရစီကုိ ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ သူေတၾရဲႚ ဝိညာဥ္ေတၾ ကဵန္ခဲ့ ပၝလိမ့္မယ္။ အဲဒီ ဝိညာဥ္ဟာ ဴမန္မာ ႎုိင္ငံရဲႚ ဒီမုိကေရစီ ဴပႂဴပင္ ေဴပာင္းလဲေရးနဲႛ တရား မ႖တေရး လၾတ္လပ္ေရး အတၾက္ ကဵေနာ္တုိႛ ႎုိင္ငံရဲႚ အနာဂတ္မႀာ ေဆာင္ဳကဥ္း ေပးသၾားမဲ့ အင္အား တခု ဴဖစ္သၾား ပၝလိမ့္မယ္။ ဒီကေနႛ ကဵေနာ္တုိႛ မဵႂိးဆက္ ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ေတၾ အမဵား႒ကီး အဖမ္းခံ ထားရ ပၝတယ္။ ကဵန္ရႀိ ေနေသးတဲ့ သူေတၾလဲ ႓ခိမ္းေဴခာက္မႁေတၾ အမဵား႒ကီး နဲႛကုိ ဳကံႂေတၾႚ ေနရ ပၝတယ္။ ဒၝေပမ့ဲ ကဵေနာ္တုိႛ လူမဵႂိးရဲႚ အမႀန္တရားကုိ ဴမတ္ႎုိးတဲ့ စိတ္ဟာ ဘယ္လုိမႀ အေသ သတ္ပစ္လုိႛ မရဘူး ဆုိတာ ကိုေတာ့ သမုိင္းနဲႛ ခဵီ႓ပီးေတာ့ ကဵေနာ္တုိႛ သက္ေသ ဴပသၾား ပၝလိမ့္မယ္။ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပဲ ကဵေနာ္တုိႛ ေပးဆပ္ရ ေပးဆပ္ရ ဒီ မဵႂိးဆက္ မဵားဟာလဲ ရဲဝင့္စၾာ ရပ္တည္ ေနမႀာ ဴဖစ္သလုိ ေနာင္လာမဲ့ လာမဲ့ လႁိင္းလုိ ႟ုိက္လာမဲ့ ကဵေနာ္တုိႚ မဵႂိးဆက္ အားလုံး ဟာလဲ ရဲဝင့္စၾာ ရပ္တည္ သၾားဳက မႀာပဲ ဴဖစ္ပၝတယ္။" (ယေနႚ ဴမန္မာ စံေတာ္ခဵိန္ မၾန္းလၾဲ တနာရီ ခန္ႚႛက ဒီဗီၾဘီနဲႚ ၈၈ ေကဵာင္းသား ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ ကိုေဌး႔ကယ္ကို ဆက္သၾယ္ ေမးဴမန္းခဵက္က ေကာက္ႎႁတ္ ေဖာ္ဴပ)

"အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီ ကပဲ ဴဖစ္ဴဖစ္၊ ၈၈ ပဲ ဴဖစ္ဴဖစ္၊ အထူးသဴဖင့္ (၈၈) ဆို ဗဟိုကရယ္လိုႛ ဆိုလိုႛကလဲ သူတုိႛမႀာ မရႀိပၝဘူးတဲ့။ သူတိုႛအသိနဲႛ ဒၝ သူတိုႛဟာသူတုိႛ လုပ္ေနဳကတဲ့သေဘာ ေဴပာပၝတယ္။ အဲဒၝ တခုက အန္အယ္လ္ဒီက လုုပ္ေနတဲ့ဟာေတၾလဲ တခဵႂိႛနယ္ေတၾမႀာလဲ လုပ္တာေတၾ ရႀိပၝတယ္။ ရန္ကုန္ကေတာ့ အမဵားဆုံးေပ့ၝ။ ရန္ကုန္ဆုိတာကလဲ ရန္ကုန္တိုင္းကလဲ ဘယ္လိုေဴပာမလဲ ဒီလိုပဲ။ သူတုိႛလဲ ႓မိႂႛနယ္ေတၾ အေဴခအေနကုိ ဴဖစ္မႀပဲ သတိုႛ သိတဲ့သေဘာရႀိပၝတယ္။ ဆိုလိုတာကေတာ့ ႓မိႂႛနယ္ေတၾက သူႛအသိနဲႛသူ လုပ္ေနဳကပၝတယ္။"(လူထု လမ္းေလ႖ာက္ ဆႎၬဴပပၾဲေတၾ အေပၞ အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီရဲႚ သေဘာထားကို ဒီဗီၾဘီက ေမးဴမန္းရာမႀာ အဲန္အယ္လ္ဒီ အတၾင္းေရးမႀႃး ဦးလၾင္ရဲႚ ေဴဖဳကားခဵက္။)

ေခဵာက္႓မႂိႚမႀာ ႓မႂိႚနယ္ အဖဲၾႚခဵႂပ္ ဥကၠႉနဲႚ အတၾင္းေရးမႀႃး၊ တစည ဥကၠႉနဲႚ အတၾင္းေရးမႀႃးကုိ အာဏာပုိင္ ေတၾက ေခၞယူ သတိ ေပးခဲ့။

ဴမန္မာႎုိင္ငံမႀာ စစ္မႀန္တဲ့ အမဵႂိးသား ဴပန္လည္ သင့္ဴမတ္ေရးကို ေရႀႚ႟ႁမဲ့ အဴပႂသေဘာ ေဆာင္တဲ့ ေတၾႚဆံု ေဆၾးေႎၾးမႁေတၾ လုပ္ဖိုႚ ကုလ သမဂၢ အေထၾေထၾ အတၾင္းေရးမႀႃးခဵႂပ္ ဘန္ကီမၾန္း (Ban Ki- moon) က ဒီကေနႛ ေဳကညာခဵက္ထုတ္ ေတာင္းဆို လိုက္ပၝတယ္။

မေလးရႀားတၾင္ အစာငတ္ခံ ဆႎၬဴပေနသူ ၅ ဦး။

ေကဵာင္းသား ေခၝင္းေဆာင္ေတၾ အပၝအဝင္ ဴမန္မာႎုိင္ငံ ထဲက လတ္တေလာ ဖမ္းဆီးမူေတၾ အေပၞ စုိးရိမ္ ပူပန္ မိေဳကာင္းနဲႚ ဆႎၬ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ပၾဲေတၾ အေပၞ အာဏာပိုင္ေတၾ အေနနဲႛ ထိန္းထိန္းသိမ္းသိမ္း တုံႚဴပန္ဖုိႛ ကိုလဲ ကုလ သမဂၢ အေထၾေထၾ အတၾင္းေရးမႀႃးခဵႂပ္က ေတာင္းဆို လိုက္ပၝတယ္။ ( ဒီဗီၾဘီ)

အတိုေကာက္ အမည္အႌၿန္း။

၁။ ေခတ္႓ပိႂင္ - ေခတ္႓ပိႂင္ ဂဵာနယ္ ကၾန္ရက္ စာမဵက္ႎႀာမဵား။

၂။ ဒီဗီၾဘီ - Democratic Voice of Burma (ဒီမိုကရက္တစ္ ဴမန္မာ့ အသံ)။

၃။ ဗီၾအုိေအ - Voice of America, Burmese Section (အေမရိကန္ အသံ၊ ဴမန္မာပိုင္း အစီအစဥ္)။

၄။ အဲန္အမ္ဂဵီ - Network Media Group (သတင္းႎႀင့္ မီဒီယာ ကၾန္ရက္)။

On a statement by Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt by on recent developments in Burma said as follows

“Recent peaceful demonstrations in Rangoon by leaders of the 88 Generation Students is an expression of widely felt discontent and despair among the people of Burma. Triggered by steep increases in fuel prices, these demonstrations appear to be a logical consequence of many years of political repression and economic mismanagement.

“Sweden condemns the arrest of pro-democracy activists and calls for their immediate release. We also urge the regime to release all political prisoners and to engage in a genuine dialogue with the democratic opposition groups in Burma.”

Politics, not rising prices, are behind the protests

The sudden fuel price increases that triggered street protests and a political crackdown in Burma this week highlighted not only the country’s economic woes and the incompetence of the ruling generals but also the country’s political problems.

The military rulers have made the same kind of blunder as occurred in 1987 when Gen Ne Win’s government suddenly announced the demonetization of bank notes.

The cancellation of bank notes and Ne Win’s speech in August 1987, in which he proposed “economic reform” and admitted “mistakes” in the past, only provided ammunition to the outraged public and dissidents who were fed up with the socialist regime. A year later, Ne Win saw his own demise.

The current regime’s announcement of huge fuel price increases was greeted with shock and was subsequently followed by widespread street demonstrations in Burma’s former capital.

As in 1988, the protests quickly turned into political demonstrations. A cowed public bravely took to the streets in pockets of demonstrations in Rangoon and provinces as far as central Burma. Some demonstrators even held pictures of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Gen Aung San, the late independence hero, and gave political speeches. The demonstrations are clearly not about the fuel price increases—Suu Kyi and her father have nothing in common with the price of gasoline.

The demonstrations are manifestations of a fight for freedom. The Burmese were waiting for the spark that would ignite a political uprising. It remains to be seen, however, how the fragile protest movement can sustain itself and resist the brutal nature of the regime.

As usual, the regime has reacted with provocations, attacks, arrests and the detention of key pro-democracy leaders, including Min Ko Naing, a former leader of the 1988 uprising. Its actions can only invite more trouble and international outcry, nothing unusual for the regime. However, the junta is determined to quell the protests with brute force.

As the protests continue, foreign and Burmese analysts are looking into the causes of the fuel price increases.

Some say the regime has been considering a privatization of the fuel distribution system in Burma and a probable sale of retail outlets to a private company. This might cause the regime to increase fuel prices to make the chosen company initially profitable.

Some theories are more intriguing, however.

One of these suggests that military leaders who wanted to postpone the final session of the National Convention, which has been drafting guidelines for a new constitution, deliberately increased the fuel prices to provoke public outrage.

The National Convention, attended by handpicked delegates, has faced some resistance from ethnic groups over issues of autonomy. Senior officials told foreign journalists— who were granted visas but then not allowed into the country—that tension has been rising. Contradictory reports also came out of Burma that National Convention closing remarks and speeches have been prepared.

The most interesting theory is that some army leaders who wanted to outdo Burma’s paramount leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe calculatingly announced the fuel price increases to trigger unrest and riots.

It is impossible to know the real story behind the increases since the regime made no prior announcement nor did it provide any proper explanation for them.

Now the regime is busy hunting down the street protesters, labeling them “agitators”—prompting the question: who is the real agitator?

The regime might well have anticipated the social and political unrest, putting its hired thugs and security officials on alert to intimidate, attack and arrest pro-democracy activists.

Some analysts and journalists in Rangoon say that the street protests and rapid reaction by students and former activists gave the excuse to the regime to arrest prominent pro-democracy leaders like Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and many others. Min Ko Naing, who had spent 16 year in solidarity confinement, had in fact been telling colleagues in exile that the regime has been looking for an excuse to again detain him and his comrades.

As in 1988, a scuffle between a group of civilians and university students finally turned into an anti-government demonstration. Why? Dissidents and Burmese were looking for a political reason to confront the military regime.

The street demonstrations in Rangoon this week are a clear reminder of the 1988 uprising. Twenty years on, Burma remains a political time bomb.

U.N. to stay the course

Following days of demonstrations and arrests in Burma, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, yesterday, called on the military government to adhere to the “spirit of the efforts of mutual engagement being pursued by the United Nations in the context of his good offices.”

Ban appealed directly to the government, in a statement, to “exercise restraint” in dealing with demonstrations and protesters.

The Secretary General called on all parties not to partake in activities and actions that could be deemed provocative and lead to a worsening of the situation.

In line with the overall strategy adopted by the United Nations toward Burma, Ban urged those involved in the ongoing disputes to engage in a “constructive dialogue” to address the situation inside the country at this important time.

Spearheading the Secretary General’s approach of constructive engagement is Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari. Gambari has recently met, discussing Burma, with leaders throughout the world and is scheduled to pay a visit to Burma in the near future.

Journalists covering demos complain of harassment

Reporters and photographers covering the protest demonstrations in Rangoon complained on Friday that they were being harassed by the authorities and pro-regime elements.

A correspondent of the international news agency Reuters told The Irrawaddy he was pushed by unknown men, who tried to take his camera. “They said we can’t take photos,” he said.

The Bangkok-based media advocacy group Southeast Asian Press Alliance expressed its concern on Friday about the harassment of journalists. SEAPA Executive Director Roby Alampay said: “We are very concerned about situation recently in Rangoon. We heard that some editors were interrogated by the police.

“We are concerned about freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press. It is a very terrible situation in Burma.”

Alampay called on the international community to closely monitor the situation.

Rangoon sources said many reporters from leading journals and periodicals had been told by their editors not to cover the demonstrations. “Editors told them that if anything happens to them they will not accept responsibility,” one editor told The Irrawaddy.

Media sources said that only a few correspondents from major news agencies such as AP, AFP and Reuters were covering the demonstrations, while local reporters were apparently staying away.

Burmese junta in military build-up after fuel protests

In a defiant stand against the military junta, activists in Burma took to the streets yesterday for the third time in less than a week to protest against rising fuel prices and soaring inflation. Once again the march was broken up by the security forces, who dragged away up to a dozen protesters.

Meanwhile, reports suggest that the authorities are bolstering their military presence, stationing vehicles and troops out of sight in local compounds.

In the latest demonstrations - the most sustained campaign for several years - about 40 members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) - whose co-founder Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest in Yangon - marched without placards through the streets of the capital.

They walked for about two miles towards their party’s offices in the east of the city before a stand-off with the security forces and pro-government gangs. They sat on the pavement and formed a human chain in an attempt to prevent the security forces from dragging them into the waiting trucks and buses.

But witnesses said that up to a dozen protesters were taken away, many of them being punched and slapped by the police as they were driven off in trucks belonging to the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), an or-ganisation established by the government to use against dissidents. Reporters and bystanders were ordered out of the area, and some members of the media were also reportedly roughed up.

The demonstrations have been held specifically to protest against the government’s decision to order a massive rise in the price of compressed natural gas and diesel. The move has added to the hardships for an already beleaguered and impoverished population.

Thirteen leading dissidents were arrested in midnight raids at the beginning of the week after the first protest on Sunday. More were held after a second march on Wednesday. Mark Farmaner, of the pressure group Burma Campaign UK, said: “These reports [of a military buildup in Yangon] are very disturbing. We know from experience that the regime is quite prepared to open fire on peaceful protesters.”

USDA stirs trouble for peaceful protesters

Members of the pro-government civilian organization Union Solidarity and Development Association have hired casual laborers and unemployed people to intimidate and attack protesters engaged in the nonviolent promotion of democracy and human rights in Burma, according to sources in Rangoon.

One Rangoon resident who joined the USDA to confront protesters said that organization members came to his house and asked that he join the group to deal with people protesting against the government.

The USDA is said to have paid between 2,000 and 2,500 kyat (US $1.50 and $1.88) per day to people who participate in the crackdown on protesters. Others have also received food in addition to cash.

Residents in the former capital said USDA members and ordinary citizens recruited by the organization lay in wait for protesters along roadsides, at bus stops and particularly at teashops.

The behind-the-scenes role of the USDA in supporting Burma’s military regime under the guise of a civilian social organization has evoked strong criticism from Burmese opposition and exile groups.

In a statement released on Friday, the Burma Lawyers Council condemned the USDA for human rights violations and breaches of Burmese law.

“The USDA is an illegal organization in Burma,” BLC General Secretary Aung Htoo told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “What they are doing at the moment is unacceptable. They are abusing and violating civilians.”

The pro-government organization was founded in September 1993 by top military leaders of the State Peace and Development Council, which rules Burma. Originally registered as a social organization devoted to addressing civil and religious issues within Burma, the group has since become little more than a civilian wing of the government frequently used to enforce obedience to the state through violence or intimidation.

USDA members have been implicated in attacks on Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters in Depayin—which left dozens dead and injured—on May 30, 2003.

Myanmar arrests 20 more protesters

Myanmar security forces Friday arrested a group of 20 protesters as they prepared to rally outside the Yangon city hall, activists said.

The demonstrators, mostly women, were gathering to protest against a massive hike in fuel prices that has sparked three days of protests already this week.

“They were arrested before they could do anything. They had just started walking,” said an activist who witnessed the arrests.

Security forces took the protesters inside city hall, the activist added.

Dozens of people have already been arrested over protests this week, including some of the country’s most prominent pro-democracy activists.

The latest arrests came amid signs that the protests were spreading to other parts of the country.

An activist in the central town of Yenanchuang told AFP by telephone that dozens of members of the opposition National League for Democracy had staged protests on Thursday and Friday against the fuel price increase.

The fuel price hike doubled transport costs around the country, but the activist said local officials had agreed to return bus fares to their earlier levels.

“We told the authorities that we will watch the situation,” the activist said on condition of anonymity.

This week has seen the most sustained protests against the military regime in at least nine years, as activists harness public anger over the fuel price increase.

Monks Demonstrate in Rangoon

Some 200 monks demonstrated peacefully in Thanlyin, Rangoon, on the night of 20 August to protest the authorities’ order to monasteries in Thanlyin not to allow monks to venture outside at night, reports a monk from Rangoon.

The order was issued by Mayaka, the Thanlyin Township administration, and sent to all monasteries in the township on 19 August through the township monk council.

After the order was issued by the authority, over 200 monks from several monasteries came out during the night and gathered in a garden in downtown Thanlyin to protest the government’s edict.

The peaceful demonstration was completed at 2 a.m. on 21 August, with no action having been taken by government authorities during the protest.

The Thanlyin Township authority likely issued the order to the monasteries in order to restrict monks who may have become involved in the expected demonstrations against the government’s recent fuel price increase, said the monk.

Burma 88 Generation Students vow to intensify protests

The 88 Generation Students announced today that protests that had been ongoing for the past three days will be intensified beginning from 24 August.

Ko Htay Kywe, one of the student leaders who led the demonstrations on 8-8-88, said that protests would continue in major cities of the country, including Rangoon, Mandalay, Moulmein, Bassein, and Taunggyi.

He called on people who favour democracy to join the protests.

“Today, we, the 88 Generation Students, will jointly be staging protests together with democracy activists, members of the National League for Democracy, monks, students who are currently attending universities, and people who love the country and want to see change in Burma.

“These protests constitute our demand to the Burmese military regime that it should release the 88 Generation Student leaders who are being detained and resolve the political and economic problems that our people are facing now.

“I call on all the people who love the country and its future to join our endeavours.”

Another leader of the 88 Generation Students also made a similar call on the people.

“On 19 August, we, the 88 Generation Students, led a march from Kokaing to Shwegondine and from Shwegondine to Tamwe. Since then, people have continued to join our marches. However, since the other side has been trying to stop us and obstruct our marches, people have become hesitant. What must be remembered here is that we did not start the protests that are ongoing and we are also unable to stop them. The movement has its own momentum because people are expressing their will. What I want to tell the people is that, this movement is born from the people because of their will. I, therefore, urge you to be brave in joining us and be bold in confronting oppression and obstruction. The more that we can strive, the better the results we will achieve. I want to urge the people to join us.”

In connection with interferences from the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and the Swan Ahr Shin (SAS) during the three-day of protests, Ko Htay Kywe said:

“This is what I want to tell them. All the people of Burma are victims of the system in the country. So, you - members of the USDA and the SAS - should not think that you are doing something good for the country. Try to clearly understand that you are protecting a small clique of people. I appeal to you to carefully consider how you can contribute to the progress of the life of the people and help fulfil the wish of the people. Besides, brutal and anarchic acts only leave stains in history.

“Hence, regardless of the obstacles, I urge the military regime to join hands with monks, students, and the rest of the people to decisively resolve through dialogue the existing political problems and economic difficulties that the people are facing today. That is the genuine desire of the people, including monks and students. I also call on the people to join us in our endeavours.”

Source: Democratic Voice of Burma website, Oslo, in Burmese 24 Aug 07

USDA members bash, arrest 30 activists

Members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association violently bashed and arrested more than 30 activists today in separate incidents around Rangoon.

Eyewitnesses told DVB that more than 20 activists gathered to protest high fuel prices in front of Rangoon’s City Hall at about 1:30pm where they were confronted by the USDA members, special police and government-backed militia.

“They protested by politely speaking out about the fact that they could not handle anymore of the high transportation and commodity prices,” one eyewitness said.

“The USDA arrived and violently dragged them inside city hall. The protestors begged the government supporters not to arrest them . . . It was a terrible scene watching the government supporters beating up old women who were protesting.”

USDA members also arrested National League for Democracy members Ko Min Min Oo, Ko Thein Htay, Ko Tin Maung Kyi as they walked down a busy street in New South Dagon township today, detaining Ko Tin Maung Kyi’s wife and one year old daughter along with the men.

U Saw Lwin, U Thein Myint Htun, Ko Nyunt Win and Ko Aung Zaw, also from New South Dagon township were arrested in a separate incident early this afternoon.

High-profile activist and one of the organisers of the recent spate of protests, Ko Htin Kyaw, told DVB yesterday that the demonstrators appeared to be gaining ground in Rangoon despite the high numbers of arrests.

“I think we are on our way to success . . . Our movement has drawn significant attention from the public who have started to express their feelings by joining our protests,” said Ko Htin Kyaw, who refused to reveal his whereabouts for fear of arrest.

“We strongly denounce the State Peace and Development Council’s tactics of aggressively cracking down on people who are protesting peacefully,” Ko Htin Kyaw said.

Arrests thwart new Myanmar protest

Myanmar’s military junta moved swiftly Friday to crush the latest in a series of protests against fuel price hikes, arresting more than 10 activists in front of Yangon City Hall before they could launch any action, witnesses said.

The arrests came after protests spread beyond the main city of Yangon, and amid mounting international condemnation of the government’s suppression of the peaceful, but rare, displays of opposition in the tightly controlled country.

Demonstrators on Thursday had marched through the oil-producing town of Yaynang Chaung to protest the fuel price hikes. The protest , the first known of outside Yangon , ended peacefully, said residents who requested anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

Another protest planned there for Friday was canceled after authorities agreed to reduce bus fares, which had been raised as a result of the fuel price increases. Nevertheless, in Yangon, rumors swirled Friday of more upcoming demonstrations.

Myanmar’s ruling junta has been widely criticized for human rights violations, including the 11-year house arrest of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta tolerates little public dissent, sometimes sentencing activists to long jail terms for violating broadly defined security laws.

The activists arrested Friday mostly belonged to a recently formed group called the “Myanmar Development Committee,” which in February staged its first protest in busy downtown Yangon holding placards calling for better health and social conditions and complaining of economic hardship.

On Thursday, plainclothes security personnel and tough-looking civilians stopped about 40 people, mostly from Suu Kyi’s party, as they walked quietly for two miles toward their party headquarters in eastern Yangon.

Authorities ordered bystanders, especially reporters, out of the area as the protesters , outnumbered by about three-to-one , were overwhelmed after a 30-minute standoff.

Protesters sat on the pavement and formed a human chain in an attempt to prevent officers from forcing them into waiting trucks and buses. A dozen protesters, however, were dragged into the vehicles, where some were slapped around, witnesses said.

The number of protesters had decreased from Wednesday, when about 300 people marched against the fuel price hikes despite the arrests of 13 top activists who had helped organize the rally. Several hundred people had joined a similar protest on Sunday.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos urged Myanmar’s government “to proceed down a path of democracy and respect of individuals and human rights.”

Similar calls were issued by France, Britain and a number of international human rights groups.

A U.N. spokesman said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the authorities to exercise maximum restraint in responding to any demonstrations and encouraged all parties to avoid provocative action.

Vaclav Havel, a fellow Nobel laureate and former president of the Czech Republic, urged in a statement Thursday that the junta “listen to the demands of its fellow citizens, to release Aung San Suu Kyi, Min Ko Naing and other political prisoners and to not attempt to remain in power through force.”

Economic dissatisfaction sparked the country’s last major upheaval, in 1988, when mass demonstrations broke out seeking an end to the military rule that began in 1962. The protests were violently subdued by the army. The junta held a general election in 1990, but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi’s party won.

The current protests are nowhere near the scale of the 1988 events, but the junta has appeared to be taking no chances in trying to clamp down on the demonstrations.