Myanmar raids Buddhist monasteries

The Irrawaddy / AFP/Getty Images

A monk runs as tear gas fills the air during the police crack down on protesting Buddhist monks and their supporters in downtown Yangon.

Authorities arrest as many as 200 monks. The crackdown on street protests leaves as many as five people dead.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 27, 2007

NEW DELHI -- Security forces in Myanmar raided two monasteries early today after a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in which at least one person was killed, according to news and witness accounts trickling out of the closed-off country.

Seeking to prevent a 10th consecutive day of demonstrations against their autocratic rule, the military leaders of Myanmar, also known as Burma, ordered the raid on the two prominent monasteries in the main city of Yangon. As many as 200 Buddhist monks were reportedly arrested.

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On Wednesday, dozens of monks were said to have been beaten and dragged off by authorities after defying official warnings by rallying in the center of Yangon. Protests were also reported in Mandalay, Myanmar's second city.

The ruling military junta acknowledged that one man had been killed and three wounded during the standoff in Yangon, but witnesses and overseas dissident groups told news agencies that as many as five people had died of gunshot wounds or other causes amid demonstrations attended by thousands of people.

"They are marching down the streets, with the monks in the middle and ordinary people either side. They are shielding them, forming a human chain," one witness told Reuters news service, as the crowd behind roared its anger at government forces.

By nightfall Wednesday the streets of Yangon appeared to be deserted, under a 9 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew.

The resort to force by Myanmar's secretive government prompted statements of concern and condemnation from around the world.

"If these stories are accurate, the U.S. is very troubled that the regime would treat the Burmese people this way," White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon D. Johndroe said. "We call on the junta to proceed in a peaceful transition to democracy."

President Bush on Tuesday announced new sanctions against Myanmar and urged other world leaders to keep the pressure on.

"The whole world is now watching Burma, and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. "The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over."

After an emergency session Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council called for Myanmar's military government to "exercise restraint" toward peaceful demonstrators. Discussion of sanctions or a formal statement of condemnation were blocked by Russia and China, which said the protests were an internal situation that did not constitute a threat to international peace and security.

China, Myanmar's largest trading partner and traditional ally, has been working behind the scenes to persuade the government to hold back, said China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya. "We have passed on word that they should not do anything to escalate the violence or make the situation more complicated," he said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held a half-hour meeting with Myanmar's foreign minister and Wednesday night dispatched the U.N.'s special envoy for the country. The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, had yet to receive a visa from the Myanmar government.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that the European Union might join the United States and impose trade and financial restrictions on the country's rulers, but that sanctions were not enough.

"The generals care little about world attention and compassion. What we need now is political pressure from countries of the region," Kouchner said. "It's our only chance to decisively help the Burmese."

Myanmar has been in the grip of military rule for 45 years, a period that has seen a cosmopolitan Asian nation rich in natural resources plunge into poverty, isolation and oppression.

The current protests were sparked by a rise in fuel prices, which hit residents hard. Led by monks, who hold strong moral authority in Myanmar society, the crowds have swollen in number over the last eight days and presented the military junta with its largest and most sustained challenge since 1988, when the government crushed protesters by firing on them, killing an estimated 3,000 and arousing international outrage.

Television footage from Wednesday's protests showed both clerics and civilians marching through Yangon's streets. One young monk, waving a multicolored flag, could be seen shouting angrily and, it appeared, trying to rally the spirits of others.

Other protesters over the last few days have flown the peacock banner identified with pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been under house arrest for most of the last 18 years.

The demonstrators' defiance of a ban on public assembly by a government known for treating dissent ruthlessly attests to the depth of anger coursing through society, analysts said.

"Things have been bad for a long time, but this petrol price hike has really pushed people over the edge. It's too deep an issue, because there are so many people living on marginal incomes, and it's such a poor country," said Adrian Vickers, a professor of Southeast Asian studies at the University of Sydney.

"The monkhood is large," he added, "and it's the only alternative organization to the government in that there are monasteries everywhere, and once you start that rolling, it'll be hard to stop."

Because of the exalted position the monks occupy, the government has had to tread carefully in response to the protests, aware that too harsh a crackdown could backfire.

Also, Vickers said that since many rank-and-file soldiers "come from very poor areas themselves, they would be quite sympathetic [to the protesters], especially on this issue of the rise in petrol prices. . . . The military have been loath to send the troops because they're not sure the military would obey their orders."

The restraint ended Wednesday, however, when security forces fired shots at demonstrators.

In its statement, the government said that one 30-year-old man had been killed by a ricocheting projectile and that two men and a woman were injured in the crush of people.

"The authorities concerned are handling the situation with care," a newsreader on state television was quoted as saying, adding that "destructive elements" were intent on breaking the law.

Thousands of demonstrators continued to rally at the Sule and Shwedagon pagodas, both of which are charged with spiritual and political significance.

Shwedagon Pagoda, with its gleaming golden spire in the center of Yangon, also known as Rangoon, has been the site of agitation against the state since the 1920s, when nationalists rallied there against British colonial rule.

The massacre that ended the 1988 demonstrations occurred around Sule Pagoda.

Those protests toppled then-military leader Gen. Ne Win, who had been in power since a 1962 coup, but he was promptly replaced by the current junta. The small coterie of generals at the heart of the junta is known to have its differences, but the divisions have yielded no letup in the intimidation, political suppression and cutoff from the rest of the world that the Burmese have endured for nearly half a century.

The generals live isolated from their people. Two years ago, in a strange move that some say was dictated by advice from an astrologer, senior junta leader Gen. Than Shwe moved the capital from Yangon to the town of Pyinmana 200 miles to the north, where roads were still unpaved and malaria is rampant.

henry.chu@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The despotism formerly known as Burma

By dispatching troops into the streets and imposing a curfew, Myanmar's cruel military junta has set the stage for a serious clash with pro-democracy activists. A firm and united international response along the lines outlined by President George W. Bush and the European Union at the United Nations Tuesday offers the best hope of encouraging peaceful change in a nation that has endured a 19-year reign of fear.

The question is whether the countries with the greatest influence on Myanmar's generals - China, Russia and India, which all sell weapons to the Myanmar army, as well the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that are Myanmar's immediate neighbors - have the good sense to condemn the repression and exert the pressures only they can wield with any hope of positive effect. It is essential that they step up to the plate, and fast, before blood is spilled.

Peaceful protests that began last month over dramatically increased fuel prices became seriously threatening to the junta when Myanmar's highly revered Buddhist monks joined in.

The growing crowds gave voice to pent-up grievances - and the junta responded in a predictable, entirely wrongheaded way. It sent troops into the streets. Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was reported to have been moved to prison from house arrest.

The United States, which has long had sanctions on Myanmar, including an import ban, will now expand a visa ban against regime leaders and tighten financial penalties, Bush told the United Nations.
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Although not spelled out in further detail, the plan is believed to include going after the bank accounts of the Myanmar regime in Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries, a tactic used by Washington with some effect against North Korea. The European Union also warned the junta that it faced tougher sanctions if it used force to crush the demonstrations.

These are good and necessary moves, but the greatest leverage to forestall disaster lies with China, Russia and India, who are making money off the junta and enabling it to stay in power. China, Myanmar's chief trade partner and the host of the 2008 Olympic Games, has beefed up arms sales to Yangon (formerly Rangoon), prompting Russia and India to do likewise as a way of offsetting Beijing's influence.

Moscow has discussed providing the junta with a nuclear research reactor, and India - the democracy on which the United States hopes to build a key security and economic relationship for the 21st century - had a senior minister in Myanmar for energy talks, even as the protests were under way.

There are some signs that China has urged restraint, but more must be done, including support for United Nations sanctions on Myanmar that Beijing and Moscow have so far blocked. The UN envoy dealing with Myanmar, Ibrahmim Gambari, must aggressively rally these major countries, as well as the Asean nations, to persuade the generals to stand down.

Letter of the day: At last the world is focusing on Myanmar

We are extremely happy to see the coverage of Myanmar (Burma) almost every day in your paper. It is about time for people in America to know what is going on in that country.

We lived in Burma for five years, from 2001 to 2006. People there live in an absolutely miserable condition. The military government oppresses the people in various ways, more subtly than obviously. The education system is a wreck. There are so many corruptions going on. The health providers are not too healthy. The government does not care for its people, to say the least.

It is about time for Burma to change. We pray that whatever change it may see will come peacefully. We still have quite a few friends, including dear monk friends, there. Living in the United States, it can be very difficult to think about the country so far away. But it is great to sit down and read the stories from the country where we lived and which our two children absolutely love.

SHOKO HANZAWA, STILLWATER

Photographer killed in Burma protests

September 27, 2007 - 9:08PM

A man lies injured after police and military officials fired upon and then charged at a crowd of thousands protesting in Yangon's city centre.
Photo: Reuters

Soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of anti-government demonstrators today as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Burma's main city braved a crackdown that has drawn international appeals for restraint by the ruling military junta.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that after soldiers fired into a crowd near a bridge across the Pazundaung River on the east side of downtown Rangoon, five men were arrested and severely beaten by soldiers.

Thousands of protesters ran through the streets after the shots rang out. Bloody sandals were left lying the road.

Witnesses said at least one man had been shot, though the guns did not appear to be aimed directly at the massive crowd that gathered at Sule Pagoda.

Earlier a foreign photographer, believed to be a Japanese, was killed in protests in Rangoon, according to a hospital source.

Earlier, a witness had described a man who fell as shots were fired when police charged a crowd of 1000 protesters as "an older man, with a small camera who appeared to be Chinese or Japanese''.

The man was wearing shorts, the witness said, clothing rarely worn by local people in Myanmar.

Soldiers fired warning shots and tear gas as troops ordered thousands of protesters off the streets or risk being shot.

But there was no sign that Burma's biggest anti-government protests in 20 years will stop, nor any indication that the military junta will heed mounting international pressure to solve the crisis peacefully.

In the most dramatic scenes today, crowds of protesters in central Rangoon scattered after more then 200 soldiers and police marched through the streets with loudspeakers warning: "We will give 10 minutes. If you fail to leave, we will take extreme action."

"Everyone on the roads and in the streets, everyone must leave immediately."

Troops advanced up the street near Rangoon's Sule Pagoda, the end-point of more than a week of marches, their rifles at their sides. Police banged their rattan riot shields with batons.

"It's a terrifying noise," one witness said.

At least 100 people were arrested and thrown into military trucks after the warning was issued.

In chaotic scenes in the city centre, protesters also stopped a truck carrying bricks and used them to pelt a police post near the Traders Hotel.

Pro-junta civilian gangs were also deployed in the heart of the former capital, a city of five million people.

Witnesses told Reuters that tear gas and warning shots were fired in clashes between crowds and soldiers and riot police.

Anger was high after Burma's generals launched pre-dawn raids on several monasteries and the deaths yesterday of up to five monks in street clashes.

Troops dispatched military trucks early this morning to two monasteries in Rangoon and arrested up to 200 of the monks accused of coordinating the demonstrations, witnesses said. Other sources said they also raided monasteries in the northeast.

Monks have been central to the protests that grew out of sporadic marches against a huge rise in fuel prices last month, as the Buddhist priesthood, the country's highest moral authority, goes head-to-head with the might of the military.

In Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, about 50 monks confronted soldiers when they tried to block the Buddhist clergy from marching out of a monastery. About 100 onlookers shouted and jeered at the soldiers.

Also today, security forces arrested Myint Thein, the spokesman for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, family members said.

An Asian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi remained at her Yangon residence where she has been detained for 12 years. Rumours had circulated that she had been taken away to Rangoon's notorious Insein prison.

Burma's state-run newspaper - the main mouthpiece of the junta's generals - today blamed "saboteurs inside and outside the nation" for causing the protests in Rangoon, and said the demonstrations were much smaller than the media are reporting.

"Saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion," said The New Light of Myanmar.

In a sign the protest movement is strengthening, a band of ethnic rebels today threw its support behind the monks, and urged other similar groups to unite in opposing the regime.

The Karen National Union (KNU) is an armed group operating in the border area between Burma and Thailand and has battled Burma's government for 57 years in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.

The KNU condemned the government's violent crackdown and urged 17 ethnic rebel groups that have signed ceasefires with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as Burma's junta calls itself, to unite in opposing the government.

"This shooting and violence is like fuelling the movement of the Sanghas (clergy) and the people. If violence and shooting continue, the SPDC military clique must bear all the consequences," the KNU said in a statement.

"We urge all the ethnic ceasefire groups to join forces with the Sanghas and the people and unite in revolt against the SPDC military dictatorship clique."

As international pressure on the junta mounts, China publicly called for restraint in Burma for the first time today.

The comments follow a meeting between a top US envoy, who called on China to use its influence as a neighbour and trade partner of the isolated regime, and Chinese officials.

"As a neighbour, China is extremely concerned about the situation in Myanmar (Burma)," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

"We hope that all parties in the Myanmar issue will maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have currently arisen so they do not become more complicated or expand, and don't affect Myanmar's stability and even less affect regional peace and stability."

The 15-member UN Security Council met in an emergency session in New York yesterday but failed to condemn the brutal repression in Rangoon.

Members merely expressed "strong support" for a plan to dispatch special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Southeast Asia to await permission from the generals to enter Burma.

The council said Gambari's visit should go ahead "as soon as possible" and expressed "concern" about the government crackdown and called for "restraint".

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers will meet today on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session before holding separate talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York later in the day.

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, has adopted a soft stance on Burma in line with its general policy of non-interference in domestic affairs.

A Western diplomat said council members were hoping that the grouping would use its influence on Burma to persuade it to meet Gambari and free political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

US officials said Rice was also expected to ask Burma's ASEAN partners to crank up the pressure for an end to the violent crackdown.

In a joint statement issued in Brussels, the European Union and the United States said they were "deeply troubled" by reports that security forces had fired on demonstrators and arrested monks spearheading the protests.

The statement called on the Security Council to consider further steps "including sanctions".

Meanwhile, Australia said it would strengthen sanctions against Burma, including financial sanctions targeted at key figures in the junta.

It also plans to ask China, India and other South-East Asian governments to use their influence with Burma to counsel restraint and push for genuine reform.

Agencies

Myanmar crackdown: Global reaction

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is "urgently dispatching" a special envoy to Myanmar, a statement from his office said Wednesday, following reports of violent clashes in that country between security forces and protesters.

Protests at the crackdown have taken place overseas, including one outside the Myanmar embassy, London.

"He calls on the senior leadership of the country to cooperate fully with this mission in order to take advantage of the willingness of the United Nations to assist in the process of a national reconciliation through dialogue," said a U.N. statement.

The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, is scheduled to lead a briefing on the situation in Myanmar for the U.N. Security Council Wednesday afternoon.

"Noting reports of the use of force and of arrests and beatings, the secretary-general calls again on authorities to exercise utmost restraint toward the peaceful demonstrations taking place, as such action can only undermine the prospects for peace, prosperity and stability in Myanmar," Ban's statement said.

There's been no official word yet if the military junta ruling Myanmar will accept the offer from the U.N. secretary-general.

Speaking at the Labour Party conference Wednesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown underscored that any trampling on human rights would not be accepted.

"The whole world is now watching Burma and this illegal and oppressive regime should know that the whole world will hold it to account," he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly's annual session Tuesday before the crackdown, said his administration would impose stiffer sanctions against the country's military regime.

"The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members," he said.

"We will continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma (the country's traditional name) and urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom."

His comments were echoed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, also at the U.N. General Assembly. "I'm deeply concerned about the situation in Burma and Myanmar, and I would like to appeal for the peaceful, spontaneous demonstrations which are expressing just political and social concerns that they not be repressed by force in any way," Sarkozy said.

Soe Aung, National Council of the Union of Burma spokesman, called for the world to take action.

"There should be some action -- decisive action -- taken by the international community. At least there should be an urgent meeting of the Security Council level," he said.

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• Bush: U.S. to tighten sanctions on Myanmar
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Aung also commented that the demonstrators do not seem content to back down.

"The monks are very determined that they are going to go ahead with the demonstrations unless their demands are met," he said.

Such demands include an apology from ministry authorities for the mistreatment of monks in central Myanmar, a reduction in the price of gasoline -- which originally sparked protests in late August -- and the release of protesters detained since demonstrations began, Aung said. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.

"We are concerned about the situation, particularly now, because we see a worsening of the political situation and that is affecting the well-being of the people of Burma.

"We have urged Mr. Gambari and he plans to visit Burma as soon as possible," Khalilzad said, referring to Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. special envoy to Burma.

US urges 'nations with influence' to push Myanmar

	Photo 1 of 4
Monks and their supporters run as police crack down on demonstrations in Yangon. Security forces swept through Myanmar's main city Thursday, killing nine people including a Japanese journalist, and arresting hundreds more in a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

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Full coverage »

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States tightened sanctions Thursday on Myanmar's military rulers and urged countries like India and China to do more to help end a bloody crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.

As the US Treasury Department froze the US assets of 14 top junta members, the White House urged the regime to let Myanmar-bound UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari meet with protest leaders and detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

US President George W. Bush said the world must press the junta to let the protests proceed and said "all nations that have influence" with Myanmar must throw their weight behind global efforts to end the crackdown.

"I call on all nations that have influence with the regime to join us in supporting the aspirations of the Burmese people and to tell the Burmese Junta to cease using force on its own people, who are peacefully expressing their desire for change," he said in a statement.

US officials did not deny that Bush's message was largely aimed at China and India, Myanmar's potent neighbors, but cautioned against reading it as a sign that Washington was worried they may hobble pressure efforts.

"The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals," the US president said.

"Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand up for people suffering under a brutal military regime like the one that has ruled Burma for too long," said Bush, who made a direct appeal to Myanmar security forces.

"I urge the Burmese soldiers and police not to use force on their fellow citizens. I call on those who embrace the values of human rights and freedom to support the legitimate demands of the Burmese people," he said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino urged the junta to give Gambari "full access to all relevant parties while he is in Burma beginning tomorrow. This includes those jailed by the junta, religious leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi."

The Nobel Peace Prize winner's opposition National League for Democracy won 1990 parliamentary elections set aside by the junta, who have kept the 62-year-old activist under house arrest for most of the past two decades.

Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department tightened US sanctions, first imposed in 1997 and expanded in 2003, by freezing assets of top regime leaders, and a visa ban on alleged human rights violators and their families was pending.

Among those designated for sanctions were junta leader Than Shwe, who is minister of defense and chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC); Vice Senior General Maung Aye, commander of the army and vice chairman of the SPDC; Lieutenant General Thein Sein, acting prime minister and first secretary of the SPDC; and General Thura Shwe Mann, joint chief of staff and member of the SPDC, along with other senior officials and military officers.

"The military leaders in Burma are living quite a wonderful lifestyle while the people are not. By tightening sanctions on them it's not going to make the people's life any worse," said Perino.

On a more symbolic front, the White House also indicated that it would continue to refer to Myanmar by the name "Burma" in a show of support for the pro-democracy activists there.

Spokesman Tony Fratto said Washington's refusal to use the junta's term for their country was "intentional" because "we choose not to use the language of a totalitarian dictatorial regime that oppresses its people."

His comments were in line with the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, which pointedly note that the 1989 name change never won approval from the country's legislators.

China pleads for calm in Myanmar

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 09/27/2007 06:06:48 AM PDT

BEIJING—China issued an evenhanded plea for calm in Myanmar on Thursday after refusing to condemn the military-run government, while Southeast Asian nations expressed "revulsion" at the violent repression of the demonstrations.

The United States said it was imposing economic sanctions against 14 top officials in the military junta.

A statement issued after a foreign ministers' meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting in New York strongly urged Myanmar's government "to exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution."

The ASEAN ministers called for the release of all political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.

"They expressed their revulsion to Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win over reports that the demonstrations in Myanmar are being suppressed by violent force and that there has been a number of fatalities," the statement said.

"They strongly urged Myanmar to exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution," it said. "They called upon Myanmar to resume its efforts at national reconciliation with all parties concerned, and work towards a peaceful transition to democracy."

Myanmar is an ASEAN member, along with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

China has come under increasing pressure to use its regional influence

to urge Myanmar's ruling junta to show restraint in dealing with the protests.

On Wednesday, China refused to condemn Myanmar and ruled out imposing sanctions, but for the first time agreed to a Security Council statement expressing concern at the violent crackdown and urging the country's military rulers to allow in a U.N. envoy.

The U.N. special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, headed for Myanmar at Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's request to try to promote a political solution and reconciliation efforts. U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Ban had been told by Win that Gambari "will be welcomed by the Myanmar government."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing that "China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated."

The crackdown puts China in a bind. Its communist government has developed close diplomatic ties with junta leaders and is a major investor in Myanmar. But with the Beijing Olympics less than a year away, China is eager to fend off criticism that it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes.

China and Russia contend the situation in Myanmar is an internal affair and doesn't threaten international peace and security—as required for Security Council action—so getting them to agree to the press statement was considered a positive step.

The Bush administration announced that 14 senior officials in Myanmar would be subject to sanctions. Those targeted include the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, and the No. 2 man, Deputy Senior Gen. Maung Aye. The action freezes any assets the 14 have in U.S. banks or other financial institutions under U.S. jurisdiction, and also prohibits any U.S. citizens from doing business with those individuals.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Bush accused Myanmar of imposing "a 19-year reign of fear" that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

"The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals," Bush said in a statement.

European Union diplomats agreed to consider imposing more economic sanctions on Myanmar. Sanctions were first imposed in 1996 and include a ban on travel to Europe for top government officials, an assets freeze and a ban on arms sales to Myanmar.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing that the use of force by the junta "will solve nothing."

"We all need to agree on the fact that the Burmese government has got to stop thinking that this can be solved by police and military, and start thinking about the need for genuine reconciliation with the broad spectrum of political activists in the country," he added.

Hill was expected to discuss the violence in Myanmar with Chinese officials on the sidelines of North Korean nuclear disarmament talks this week in Beijing. He declined to say whether Washington would request specific measures from Beijing.

Among those killed Thursday was Kenji Nagai, a journalist for the Japanese video news agency APF News. Nagai, 50, had been covering the protests since Tuesday, APF representative Toru Yamaji said in Japan.

In Washington, Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tokyo held Myanmar "strictly" accountable for Nagai's death. The 50-year-old journalist had been covering the protests in Yangon, APF representative Toru Yamaji said in Japan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Japan will lodge a protest with Myanmar, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. "We strongly protest the Myanmar government and demand an investigation" into the death, Machimura was quoted as saying by the official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, as saying. "We demand (Myanmar) take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of the Japanese citizens in that country."

Japan is to dispatch Deputy Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka to Myanmar to protest Nagai's death, Kyodo News agency reported.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his government would also press Beijing to urge the junta to end its violent repression.

———

Associated Press writers Mari Yamiguchi in Tokyo, Foster Klug and Martin Crutsinger in Washington, Jan Sliva in Brussels, Belgium, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

UK's Brown vows "no impunity" for abuse in Myanmar

(Adds PM spokesman, Miliband quotes)

BOURNEMOUTH, England, Sept 26 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on Myanmar on Wednesday, vowing there would be "no impunity" for human rights violators in the country.

"I hope the Security Council will meet immediately, meet today, and discuss this issue and look at what can be done. The first thing that should be done is the U.N. envoy should be sent to Burma (Myanmar)," Brown told reporters at a conference of Britain's ruling Labour Party.

"There will be no impunity in future for those who trample the human rights of the people of Burma."

Brown spoke as a hospital source said one person was killed and five wounded in Myanmar's main city on Wednesday when security forces moved in to disperse the biggest anti-junta demonstrations in 20 years.

"I think everybody knows now that the whole issue of sanctions is going to take on a new dimension," he said.

The European Union was going to look at "a whole range of sanctions that could be imposed", he said.

"The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account. The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over," he said.

"I think the international pressure that can be made to be felt in the next few days is incredibly important. I want to see the whole of the world getting together on this, each continent of the world can come together."

A spokesman for the prime minister later said Brown would be phoning world leaders about the situation.

"We certainly expect him to speak to (U.N. Secretary-General) Ban Ki-moon today," the spokesman said, adding Brown hoped also to talk to U.S. President George W. Bush.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who is due to fly to New York for U.N. meetings later on Wednesday, urged Myanmar authorities to exercise restraint in responding to the protests and said they would be held accountable for their conduct.

A British government official said Miliband would discuss the situation with China's Foreign Minister later on Wednesday.

"It is very important that we maintain this unanimous international call for restraint," he told reporters in Bournemouth, southern England.

He said no contact had been made with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who appeared in front of her house on Saturday to greet marching monks. A well-placed source told Reuters she had been moved to the Insein prison on Sunday, although the information could not be confirmed.

"She will know that the world is on her side and a democratic Burma must be the end result. But in the short term the message is restraint and protection of the brave people who are marching," Miliband said. (additional reporting by Sophie Walker)

Myanmar protests push Iran down U.N. agenda

By Paul Taylor

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - President George W. Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against Myanmar on Tuesday and Western leaders warned the southeast Asian nation's army rulers against crushing pro-democracy protests by force.

Urging all countries to "help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom," Bush told the annual U.N. General Assembly he was imposing financial sanctions and a visa ban on more members of the junta, their supporters and relatives.

His call came before the authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and poured security forces into Yangon to try to end the biggest demonstrations against military rule for two decades. Earlier, 10,000 Buddhist monks again defied the generals by marching through the city chanting "democracy, democracy."

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear," Bush told the world body in his annual speech.

Myanmar was formerly called Burma and its capital Rangoon.

"The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers," Bush said.

The 27-nation European Union said it would strengthen existing sanctions that include an arms embargo, a travel ban and an assets freeze on junta members "should they resort to using violence against the unarmed and peaceful demonstrators."

The Myanmar protests temporarily pushed concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions and the fight against climate change down the agenda on the first day of the U.N. debate, as well as conflicts in Darfur, Iraq and the Middle East.

Separately, the U.N. Security Council gave the green light for a European Union-led peacekeeping force to protect refugees and displaced persons in Chad and the Central African Republic from spillover violence from the Sudanese province of Darfur.

IRAN ISSUE "CLOSED"

Bush focused in his speech on human rights and promoting democracy, including in Iran, without mentioning the Iranian nuclear program. But a White House spokeswoman said Washington would continue to press for tougher U.N. sanctions on Tehran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the assembly that the issue of his country's nuclear program was "closed" since Tehran was cooperating fully with the U.N. atomic watchdog and its uranium enrichment activities were legal.

Despite military threats and "illegal" sanctions, "Iran has moved forward step by step and now our country is recognized as one with the capacity for industrial-scale fuel cycle production for peaceful purposes," he declared.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reminded the assembly of the high stakes in the standoff, saying that to allow the Islamic Republic to acquire nuclear weapons could destabilize the world.

"There will be no peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of nuclear arms proliferation ... Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war," Sarkozy said in his maiden U.N. address.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at an awards ceremony in New York that it was not up to the world to prove Tehran sought nuclear weapons, "rather it is up to Iran to prove that it does not want to build an atomic bomb."

In the absence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who stayed away after sparking an outcry last year by comparing Bush to the devil, it fell to veteran leftist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to deliver an anti-capitalist tirade against U.S. world hegemony.

U.S. leaders continued to dictate what was right or wrong "as if they were God," he declared, while poor countries were still afflicted by "oppression and violence and terror."

The United States accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and arming insurgents in Iraq. Washington is pushing for a third U.N. sanctions resolution over Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, but faces opposition from China and Russia.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Tabassum Zakaria, Jeff Mason, Claudia Parsons and Patrick Worsnip)

World steps up pressure on Burma

New York - Former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, the incoming secretary general of Asean the massive protests in Burma would lead to change as the international community appealed to the junta not to use force to crack down on tens of thousands of prodemocracy demonstrators.


"We do hope in Asean that things will not get out of hand, will not become too violent, but would lead to some kind of a congregation, some kind of change,'' Surin told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

The current demonstrations could provide momentum for reform not seen in recent years, he said.

"I think it's different from previous gatherings in the past 10 or 20 years, in the sense that it's being led by an institution that is most respected in (Burma) society,'' he said, referring to the fact that the protesters were led by monks who factor significantly in this deeply Buddhist country.

But Surin cautioned that given the size of the crowd, ``it is worrisome that things could get out of hand.''

A number of countries, including Asean members, have called on Burma to follow through on repeated pledges to implement democratic reforms and urged restrainst.

Philippines's President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo saying that Asean ``would like to see further improvement in democracy in Myanmar (Burma).''

A similar call came from the United Nations, where SecretaryGeneral Ban Kimoon praised the peaceful nature of the protests and voiced his hopes that authorities in the country would ``seize this opportunity to engage without delay in dialogue with all the relevant parties to the national reconciliation process.''

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, US President George W. Bush tightened economic sanctions against leaders of the regime and also urged other nations to apply pressure.

"The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers, and we will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights," President George W. Bush said in a speech to the UN General Assembly.

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the protests had shown the failure of the country's regime to demonstrate that real political change was possible.

"It is vital that the Burmese authorities exercise restraint in the face of the demonstrators, and seize the opportunity to launch a process of real political reform,'' Brown wrote in a letter sent to UN SecretaryGeneral BanKimoon and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose country holds the EU presidency.

"It is disturbing that they are now threatening to use force against the demonstrators,'' Brown wrote. ``Violent suppression of the demonstrations would be a tragedy and another missed opportunity for Burma.''

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Aung San Suu Kyi should take her place as elected leader of Burma.

Suu Kyi, who is held under house arrest in Rangoon by the military junta, appeared outside her house last week as a gesture of support the marchers. Unconfirmed reports said she has been relocated to a highsecurity prison.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hit out at the crackdown on protests and said he would meet in Paris with exiled opposition figures to express his support.

"Tomorrow I will receive a delegation from the Burmese opposition in exile," Sarkozy said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session here.

Swedish Aid Minister Gunilla Carlsson said the eyes of the world were now on Burma, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the UN Security Council again to consider the situation in Burma

"We can only hope that things continue there without bloodshed,'' Merkel told reporters in New York, where she was attending the UN General Assembly meeting.

Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu praised the ``courage of the people of Burma'' in backing the demonstrations, which have grown steadily and are now led by Buddhist monks.

"It is so like the rolling mass action that eventually toppled apartheid'' in South Africa, Tutu said in a statement.

Leading donor Japan urged Myanmar's rulers "to remain calm, not to react in an extreme fashion."

"The public will has been expressed by the people who are marching on the streets," said foreign ministry spokesman Tomohiko Taniguchihe.

European Union spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said the 27nation bloc was watching the situation closely, but that it was not now considering an expansion of sanctions against the junta.

Stability and peace ``can only be achieved through political reform,'' said a statement issued by the office of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who was at the United Nations in New York where Burma was being discussed at the opening of the UN's General Assembly.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged China, India and Asean, of which Burma is a member, to exert their influence on the regime, arguing their stance would carry more clout than the West.

"I think the voices that the Burmese military leadership hear the loudest are the voices of China and India," Downer said.

However, China said it would stick to its policy of noninterference.

"As a friendly neighbouring country of Myanmar (Burma), China hopes to see stability and economic development in Myanmar," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, calling on the government to "properly handle" the situation.

China is widely regarded to have been vital in keeping the military regime afloat through its deep economic links and arms sales, as well as by shielding it against UN sanctions for alleged human rights abuses.

In the 10 years since it joined Asean, Burma has proved a major headache for the region's budding democracies, who have been admonished by the West for failing to press for reforms.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement that the council must meet "to respond to the serious deterioration in the human rights situation over recent months", whileHuman Rights Watch and Amnesty Intenational made a similar request.

MYANMAR (BURMA): TEAR GAS USED ON MONKS, DOZENS ARRESTED

(AGI) - Yangon, 26 September - Dozens of monks have been roughed up by security forces in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, one of the nerve centres of the protests of recent days. It comes in a renewed attempt by the military government, which has ruled Myanmar (former Burma) with an iron fist for the past forty years, to quash a re-start to the protest marching. Teargas was also used by police in Yangon.

Eye-witnesses speak of 80 arrests.

Technology puts Myanmar protests in international eye

Myanmar's swelling protests are in the global spotlight with the help of hi-tech gadgets in the era of YouTube -- a stark contrast to the 1988 uprising in the pre-Internet age.

The peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, have turned into the biggest mass movement since the military regime violently quelled student-led protests in 1988, killing at least 3,000 people.

Those massacres happened far from the world's view because Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was then sealed off from the outside world before the age of the Internet and cell phones.

But 20 years later, monk-led rallies have received wide coverage in the international media thanks to the Internet, mobile phones and digital cameras, which have proved more powerful than the junta's censors.

"The technology is making a huge difference. Now everyone in the world can know what is happening in Burma via the Internet," said Sein Win, managing editor of Mizzima News, an India-based news group run by exiled dissidents,

"It is a reality of globalisation. Whether the junta likes it or not, the government cannot isolate itself from the international community," Sein Win said.

Since the protest broke out in Yangon on August 19 after a massive hike in fuel prices, the government has tightened Internet access across the nation that has been under military rule since 1962.

But some 200 Internet cafes in Yangon have continued to operate, drawing tech-savvy university students who have transmitted pictures and video clips taken on mobile phones and digital cameras around the clock.

"Young people know how to get around Internet controls. Not just from Yangon, we received pictures and video clips from Mandalay," said Aung Din, policy director of US Campaign for Burma, a Washington-based democracy lobbying group. Mandalay is the second largest city after Yangon.

Aung Din, who joined the 1988 uprising, said he was overwhelmed by the difference between now and then.

"In 1988, we did not have the Internet or even phones to get our message out of Burma. Nobody in the international community knew about the 1988 uprising. But the world knows about the current protests. It's just amazing," Aung Din said.

The California-based Mandalay Gazette said it has received dozens of pictures and video clips every day from Myanmar.

"Students and even monks are using mobile phones and digital cameras. Everyone can send us pictures. In a way, the Internet makes everybody equal," said one US-based editor who declined to be named.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has called Myanmar a "paradise for censors" and listed the military-ruled nation as one of the world's most restrictive for press freedoms.

The military government attempts to block almost every website that carries news or information about the Southeast Asian country, and even bars access to web-based email.

© 2006 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

Bush at the UN: a war criminal lectures the world on “human rights”

By Bill Van Auken

26 September 2007

George W. Bush delivered his next to the last annual address to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday. Taking the same podium that he used five years ago to condemn the world body to “irrelevance” if it failed to rubber stamp his plans for a war of aggression against Iraq, Bush cast his regime in Washington as the world’s greatest champion of human rights and its most generous and selfless benefactor.

That the assembled UN delegates could sit through and then politely applaud such a hypocritical harangue from a man who is without rival as the world’s greatest war criminal is testimony to the spinelessness and complicity of both the world’s governments and the United Nations itself.

While Bush made only the barest mention of either Iran or Iraq in his address, everyone in the hall was well aware that he is attempting once again to utilize the world body—much as his administration did five years ago in relation to purported Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”—to secure a phony pretext for another war of aggression, this time against Iran.

No doubt Bush’s handlers in Washington recognized that to deliver a belligerent speech demanding action by the UN against Iran would only recall the lies and intimidation used by the US administration in 2002-2003 to prepare its war against Iraq.

Since then, an estimated 1 million Iraqis have been killed and nearly 4 million more turned into refugees as a result of the unprovoked US invasion with its “shock and awe” bombardments and the subsequent occupation that has destroyed every aspect of Iraqi society.

So instead, Bush came before the assembled delegates in the most improbable guise, as the apostle of liberty, equality and the rights of man.

He began his speech by hailing the founding document of the UN drafted more than six decades ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserting that this formal declaration in support of freedom, justice and peace “must guide our work in this world.”

“When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the Declaration is not being upheld,” he declared. Who does the American president think he is kidding? Where on the face of the planet are more men, women and children “trapped in a life of murder and fear” than in US-occupied Iraq? The death toll for Iraqis has been estimated as high as 1,000 a week due to US military operations, the murderous rampage of mercenaries who kill with impunity and the sectarian violence unleashed by the country’s devastation at the hands of Washington.

Bush declared that the UN must work “to free people from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair,” adding that “every member of the United Nations must join in this mission of liberation.”

In the Orwellian language favored by the right-wing ideologues in the Bush administration, “liberation” is continuously invoked as the description for the war to impose semi-colonial domination by the US over Iraq and its oil wealth. And it is this “mission” undertaken by means of an eruption of American militarism that Bush demands the world body sanction and support.

Bush continued by invoking the first article of the Universal Declaration, which affirms that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The greatest threat to this principle, he claimed, comes from “terrorists and extremists.” Therefore, he argued, “all civilized nations” must join the US in its global war on terrorism.

Bush then moved on to other subjects, a wise move, given that a more detailed citation of the Universal Declaration would have sounded like a war crimes indictment against his own administration.

It includes, for example, the injunction that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” a principle that the Bush White House has explicitly repudiated, both by renouncing the Geneva Conventions and subjecting those detained in the US “war on terror” to waterboarding, beatings, sensory deprivation, sexual humiliation and other forms of torture and degrading treatment.

The declaration affirms that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile,” practices that the Bush administration has carried out with impunity, through the holding of detainees without charges, not only at the infamous detention facilities in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, but also at secret CIA prisons around the world. It has introduced “extraordinary rendition” into the lexicon of foreign policy, a discreet term for kidnapping people, drugging them and then sending them in hoods and chains to other countries so that they can be tortured.

And there is also the clause of the declaration asserting that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.” This is a principle that the administration has explicitly violated in relation to the American people, not to mention the rest of the world, through the massive illegal domestic spying operation organized through the National Security Agency.

Given his administration’s infamous reputation, the world’s horror over the unfolding debacle in Iraq and the mounting fears that an even worse catastrophe is about to be unleashed in Iran, it appeared that those who drafted Bush’s speech thought it was a good time to change the subject.

Why Myanmar?

Thus, a major thrust of his remarks—and the issue that garnered by far the greatest press coverage—was the American president’s announcement that he is ordering a tightening of economic sanctions against Myanmar (Burma).

He declared: “Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear.” While no doubt the corrupt military regime that rules the country has carried out brutal repression against its people, the claim that “Americans are outraged” by these practices is belied by the fact that given the virtual failure of either the administration or the mass media to pay any attention to the developments there, most Americans know nothing about them.

Bush’s new measures were hardly sweeping, amounting to further restrictions on visas for Myanmar officials and their families and financial sanctions against the ruling junta and its backers.

The pretense that the Bush administration’s concerns lie with the aspirations of the people of Myanmar, who have taken to the streets in recent days in mass demonstrations, is farcical. The US government has supported and directly installed countless military dictatorships from Indonesia to Chile, helping them to carry out far worse atrocities than the Burmese junta in suppressing their own people.

Rather, under mantle of “liberation” and “democracy,” US imperialism is once again pursuing its own strategic interests, attempting to bring to power a pro-American government that would open up the country to exploitation by US capital. Given the Myanmar government’s close economic and political relations with neighboring China, such an exercise in regime change would significantly advance Washington’s attempts to challenge Beijing for supremacy in the region, while steadily working to militarily encircle China.

Also invoked as targets for the American-led “mission of liberation” were the governments of Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Belarus, North Korea and Syria, all of which Washington has presumably found guilty and sentenced to be overthrown.

Continuing with his invocation of the Universal Declaration, Bush cited a passage affirming that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food and clothing and housing and medical care.”

He used this clause to engage in a round of shameless and deceptive self-congratulation, proclaiming US benevolence in the distribution of food internationally and, in particular, in assistance to the campaign to combat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

The reality, as the news agency Reuters reported earlier this month, is that “food donations to the world’s hungry have fallen to their lowest level since 1973.” The impending crisis, which threatens starvation for sections of the world’s 850 million people facing hunger, is driven by the capitalist market. Food prices have soared, in no small part due to the drive by the US to promote the production of corn-based ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

As for AIDS funding, Bush’s presentation of Washington’s role obscures the fact that the US ranks fifth among donor nations relative to the size of their national economies. Inadequate funding for the programs—as well as restrictions imposed on the use of US aid crafted to please the Christian right—means that millions of Africans will be denied any treatment.

Meanwhile, US aid as a whole amounts to a paltry sum compared to the vast wealth that Wall Street appropriates from the rest of the world and is utilized largely as a weapon to facilitate this global looting process. In 1970, international donor nations signed an agreement that they would assign 0.7 percent of their national incomes to foreign aid. While no country has come close to donating this amount, in the US last year aid amounted to just 0.17 percent of gross national income.

Finally, Bush warmed up to his subject, citing the Universal Declaration’s assertion of the “right to work” and to “just and favorable conditions of work” as an argument for free-market capitalism and the tearing down of all barriers to the exploitation of the world’s economy by the transnational banks and corporations.

Bush closed his remarks with a demand that the UN reform itself, again invoking “the American people” and their supposed disappointment with the functioning of the world body’s Human Rights Council. In essence, Bush demanded that the council focus on denouncing Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran and halt its criticism of Israel for killing civilians in Lebanon and suppressing the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Behind Bush’s criticism is the embarrassing reality that Washington has chosen for the last two years not to seek a seat on the Human Rights Council for fear that it would fail to get the necessary votes.

The successive revelations over Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, extraordinary renditions and CIA torture—not to mention the continued use of the death penalty at home—makes the US the most fitting target for human rights charges. Yet it presumes to dictate to the world which countries should be investigated and which should not. Naturally those where Washington is seeking regime change—such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela—are vilified, while those despotic regimes considered strategic allies of the US—Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, Washington’s chief ally in suppressing the Arab masses—are declared above suspicion.

Bush’s appearance before the UN General Assembly was an entirely predictable exercise in imperialist arrogance, rank hypocrisy and double-talk in service of American big business. In the final analysis, his speech was probably more significant for what it omitted than for the American president’s absurd posturing as a crusader for human rights and universal liberation. Behind the virtual silence on Iraq and Iran, new and more terrible crimes are being prepared.

See Also:
Iranian president speaks at Columbia University amidst media frenzy
[25 September 2007]

The time to speak out on Burma is now

JON UNGPHAKORN

I was going to begin my first column for the Bangkok Post by expressing my views on our government's suffocation of internet freedom, but that will have to wait till next week.

The present situation in Burma (officially called "Myanmar" by the governing military junta) requires me to urgently call upon our government (established by our own home-made military junta), to relinquish its wimpish "non-interference" position on the Burmese domestic situation, and tell the Burmese regime in no uncertain terms that any use of violence to crack down on the peaceful mass demonstrations for democracy and social justice taking place all over country, will be completely unacceptable to Thailand.

The Asean community as a whole should also openly press the junta to defuse the situation by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and to immediately hold negotiations with her and other political leaders on a new time-table for rapid transition to democracy. This is the only peaceful way out left to the military regime, and is in the full interest of stability and peace, not only in Burma, but throughout the region.

As a former member of the Senate, I am a member of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC). We are the first grouping of parliamentarians from all countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (except Laos and Vietnam for the time being), who actively campaign together to support democracy in Burma. We try not to be hypocritical by also recognising the need to promote democratic reforms in our own countries. We believe that Asean countries cannot realistically adhere to the present policy of "non-interference" in one another's internal affairs. This is because events in one country often affect its neighbours and sometimes the whole region.

One example is the yearly forest fires in Indonesia that have caused severe smog in Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand. Another is the violent situation in the southern border provinces of Thailand that obviously affects Malaysia.

AIPMC believes that Asean countries should get into the habit of discussing and expressing opinions on internal issues within a member country where those issues affect fundamental human rights within the country, the welfare of people in other countries of the region, or the Asean community as a whole.

No one can really argue with the fact that the domestic situation in Burma has had immense impact on the Asean community as a whole, and particularly on Thailand.

Thailand hosts over 300,000 Burmese refugees due to gross violations of human rights, mass violence and rape, and forced internal displacement of rural communities by the Burmese military.

We also host over two million migrant workers from Burma (both documented and undocumented) due to the severe economic hardships within that country.

Communicable diseases (some previously extinct here) are crossing the border due to the lack of proper health services in Burma. Illicit drugs are smuggled across the border for mass consumption in Thailand.

Our military has to keep its forces concentrated on protecting the border with Burma.

How can anyone possibly say that the domestic situation in Burma is none of our business? Is our government prepared to keep silent and meekly allow yet another violent crackdown on mass demonstrations which could result in a new wave of refugees coming to Thailand?

The welfare of the people of Burma is entwined with the welfare of the Asean community as a whole.

The peaceful marches and rallies across Burma, led by the Buddhist monks, are an exciting move by the Burmese people to claim their democratic rights.

However, successive military regimes have consistently suppressed such movements with violent force.

Democracy supporters across the world are holding their breath. Now is the right time for the Thai government and all Asean governments to speak out.

Jon Ungphakorn is a former elected senator for Bangkok and at present Chairman of the Thai NGO Coordinating Committee on Development. Comments are welcome at: ungjon@usa.net

Bush slaps new sanctions on Myanmar rulers

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US President George W. Bush addresses the 62nd UN General Asssembly at the United Nations. Bush on Tuesday imposed new US sanctions on Myanmar's military rulers and their supporters, and urged global support for efforts to advance democratic reforms there.

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UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Tuesday unveiled new sanctions on Myanmar's military rulers and urged global pressure for democratic reforms to end the junta's decades-old "reign of fear."

As world powers warned the generals in Yangon against using force to break up the biggest protests in two decades, Bush called on the UN General Assembly to side with the demonstrators and "help bring peaceful change" there.

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear," he said. "The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people's desire for freedom is unmistakable."

After he spoke, the junta imposed a dusk-till-dawn curfew on Yangon effective Wednesday and declared the entire city a military "restricted" area -- a term normally reserved for military or conflict zones.

The restrictions will be in place for 60 days, and a similar order was imposed in the second city of Mandalay, according to an official announcement that warned against gathering in groups of more than five people.

Earlier, the military sped at least 200 armed soldiers and riot police in downtown Yangon, after Buddhist monks defied warnings of a crackdown and led 100,000 people in another day of peaceful protests against the regime.

This week's protests are the biggest public show of dissent since student-led rallies in 1988 were brutally repressed with hundreds, if not thousands, of lives lost.

"The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members," Bush said.

"We will continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma and urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom."

He noted the military had detained Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, whose opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) won elections in 1990 that the military never recognized. She has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest in Yangon.

The military has held power in Myanmar in one form or another since 1962, but tightened its grip in a 1988 crackdown, and refused to accept Aung San Suu Kyi's electoral victory.

Bush's remarks came as European ambassadors were Tuesday to hold their first talks on Myanmar since the latest protests began, an EU spokesman said, and as Britain called for a tougher stance against the regime.

But it was unlikely that any decision would be made during the day to toughen up EU sanctions, which were reinforced in April, said one participating European diplomat.

Burma Campaign UK assistant director Mark Farmaner praised Bush for showing the world the way to deal with the regime.

"It will certainly do good," he told AFP. "Once again the US is miles out in the lead in terms of supporting Burma's democracy movement, putting the rest of the world to shame."

Farmaner, citing existing US investment and imports bans, praised both Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton for resisting intensive lobbying from US petroleum countries for them to ease the restrictions.

In contrast, Farmaner said the EU's sanctions were ineffective and had not restricted oil and gas revenue for the regime but instead targeted state-owned companies, including a pineapple juice factory and tailor's shops.

The so-called "pineapple sanctions" include a visa ban, but officials travelling to Europe on diplomatic missions are exempt, he said.

"What we need is a combination of economic and political pressure. The EU has no strategy towards Burma. It is divided," he said, calling for "targeted, smart sanctions" to hit the regime where it hurts -- in the pocket."

In his speech, Bush also scolded the United Nations for not doing enough to challenge repressive governments, citing Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Iran, as well as Cuba, Zimbabwe and Sudan.

Bush also called for overhauling the UN human rights council which, he charged, overly criticizes Israel while turning a blind eye to abuses elsewhere.

Britain wants to see Suu Kyi installed in power

Wednesday, 26 September , 2007, 01:40

London: The British government called for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be installed in "her rightful place" as the leader of Myanmar.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband, speaking at the Labour Party congress in Bournemouth, southern Britain, said it was "brilliant" to see Suu Kyi "alive and well" outside her home in Yangon last week.

"I think it will be a hundred times better when she takes her rightful place as the elected leader of a free and democratic Burma," Miliband told delegates, calling Myanmar by its old name.

Earlier, Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for "immediate international action" - including discussions at the UN Security Council - to prevent a threatened military crackdown on protesters in Myanmar.

Brown urged the military regime in Yangon to "exercise restraint".

"We have all been watching with concern the unfolding human tragedy in Burma, which requires immediate international action," Brown wrote in letters to the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN).

"Violent suppression of the demonstrations would be a tragedy and another missed opportunity for Burma," wrote Brown. He called on the United Nations to encourage Myanmar's key regional neighbours to urge the authorities in Yangon to "pursue reconciliation".

Brown made his appeals in letters to the current holder of the presidency of the European Union, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

The European Union (EU) also Tuesday urged Myanmar government to exercise "maximum restraint" in handling the current street protests.

"We are very concerned by the situation in Burma (Myanmar) following what I stress are peaceful protest by Buddhist monks and many people from civil society," said Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, a spokesman for the EU's development and humanitarian aid commission.

"So far no violence has been used to quell the peaceful demos. However, we are also concerned by an increasing military presence in the streets (that has become) more and more visible. We are therefore urging all stakeholders, particularly the government, to exercise maximum restraint," Altafaj Tardio added.

His comments were echoed by the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who called on Myanmar regime to push through political reforms, release political prisoners and grant "fundamental rights and freedoms" to its citizens.

Myanmar police fire warning shots

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Thousands of Buddhist monks and pro-democracy activists marched toward the center of Yangon Wednesday in defiance of the military government's ban on public assembly.

A Buddhist monk holds an alms bowl upside-down as a symbol of protest.

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The march followed a tense confrontation between the protesters and riot police who fired warning shots, beat some monks and dragged others away into waiting trucks.

The junta had banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a nighttime curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks in Yangon and other areas of the country, including the largest in nearly two decades.

Firing shots into the air, beating their shields with batons and shouting orders to disperse, the police chased some of the monks and about 200 of their supporters, while others tried to stubbornly hold their place near the eastern gate to the vast shrine complex.

Some fell to the ground amid the chaos and at least one monk was seen struck with a baton.

When faced with a similar crisis in 1988, the government harshly put down a student-led democracy uprising. Security forces fired into crowds of peaceful demonstrators and killed thousands, traumatizing the nation.

A comedian famed for his anti-government jibes was the first well-known activist rounded up since the curfew.

Zarganar, who uses only one name, was taken away from his home by authorities shortly after midnight, with family members saying authorities told them the 45-year-old had been "called in for temporary questioning."

Zarganar, along with actor Kyaw Thu and poet Aung Way, led a committee that provided food and other necessities to the Buddhist monks who have spearheaded the protests. He earlier had been imprisoned twice and his comedy routines were banned for their satirical jokes about the regime.

The fates of the actor and poet were not immediately known.

Earlier Tuesday, the army began deploying troops in the heart of Yangon after tens of thousands of people led by barefoot monks in maroon robes defied orders to stay off the streets and marched for the eighth straight day against the junta.

Troops were also seen gathering at a military center in Mandalay and military trucks rumbled through the streets of both cities late into the night, witnesses said.

The potential for a violent crackdown had already aroused international concern, with pleas for the junta to deal peacefully with the situation coming from government and religious leaders worldwide. They included the Dalai Lama and South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates like detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

President Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, accusing the military dictatorship of imposing "a 19-year reign of fear" that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma," Bush said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Bush said the U.S. would tighten economic sanctions on leaders of the regime and their financial backers, and impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for human-rights violations and their families.

The European Union also threatened to strengthen existing sanctions against the regime if it uses violence to put down the demonstrations.

"We reiterate our call on the authorities in Burma/Myanmar not to use violence against people who are committed to non-violence, and to pursue genuine reconciliation and negotiation," the statement said.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he is "extremely preoccupied" with the situation in Myanmar and planned to meet Burmese government opponents in Paris. Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Suu Kyi should take her place as elected leader of the country, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the junta to exercise restraint in the face of the protests.

The protests could also bring increased scrutiny on China's close relations with Myanmar. China is the country's major trading partner and Chinese energy companies are investing in exploration of natural gas in Myanmar.

Myanmar has about 19 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, only about 0.3 percent of the world's total reserves, according to BP's Statistical Review of World Energy at the end of 2006. Although it doesn't currently export gas to China, its supply could potentially help feed a rapidly growing Chinese economy hungry for energy.

Myanmar's imposition of new restrictions after a week of relative inaction by the military government throws down a challenge to its opponents, testing their mettle when faced with almost certain arrest.

It was not clear what the penalty for defying the curfew would be. But breaking the section of the law restricting gatherings carries a possible jail term of two years.

The new restrictions were announced late at night, and many residents did not seem aware of them.

The current protests began on August 19 after the government hiked fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the repressive military rule that has gripped the country since 1962.

The protests were faltering when the monks took the lead last week, assuming the role of a moral conscience they played in previous struggles against British colonialism and military dictators.

At least 35,000 Buddhist monks and sympathizers defied official warnings Tuesday and staged another anti-government march.

"The protest is not merely for the well-being of people but also for monks struggling for democracy and for people to have an opportunity to determine their own future," one monk told The Associated Press. "People do not tolerate the military government any longer." He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of official reprisals.

On Monday, a massive monk-led protest drew as many as 100,000 people in Yangon -- the biggest street protest since the failed 1988 uprising.

Authorities in cars cruised Yangon's streets Tuesday morning, announcing the clergy had been directed not to take part in "secular affairs" and saying that certain elements were trying to instigate unrest.

The head of the country's official Buddhist organization, or Sangha, issued a directive Monday ordering monks to stick to learning and propagating the faith, saying young monks were being "compelled by a group of destructive elements within and without to break the law," the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

A monk who addressed the crowd at the end of the march vowed the protests would continue until the government apologizes for mistreating monks at an earlier demonstration in northern Myanmar. But the protests are also aimed at pressuring the junta to make moves to restoring democracy.