Myanmar junta threatens action against protesters
MYANMAR: Myanmar's generals threatened action against further
attempts at demonstrations on Tuesday and parked military trucks at
Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, the assembly point for monks leading the main
protests.
Loudspeaker vehicles touring central Yangon did not specify what
action would be taken after the biggest protest against the junta since
1988, when the military crushed pro-democracy demonstrations and killed
an estimated 3,000 people.
"People are not to follow, encourage or take part in these marches.
Action will be taken against those who violate this order," the message
broadcast across the former Burma's largest city said.
The broadcasts also accused factions within the deeply revered
Buddhist monkhood of instigating protest marches "with intent to incite
unrest".
The warnings and the sight of albeit small numbers of soldiers of the
Light Battalion 77 outside Myanmar's holiest shrine are likely to
sharpen fears of a repeat of the 1988 crackdown.
The Burma Campaign UK said its sources had reported the junta
ordering 3,000 maroon monastic robes and telling soldiers to shave their
heads, possibly to infiltrate the mass ranks of monks marching for an
end to 45 years of unbroken military rule.
Although more than 150 people have been arrested since Aug. 19 in
protests initially against shock fuel price rises, the junta has
remained reluctant to put soldiers on the streets, perhaps mindful of
the 1988 bloodshed.
Tuesday's deployment was the first sighting of military vechicles at
the gilded Shwedagon, Myanmar's holiest shrine and symbolic heart of the
protest movement since monks joined in a week ago.
After crowds estimated at between 50,000 to 100,000 dispersed on
Monday, state radio quoted Religious Affairs Minister Brigadier General
Thura Myint Maung as saying action would be taken against senior monks
if they did not control their charges.
He was also quoted as telling the State Monks Council the protests
were incited by "destructive elements who do not want to see peace,
stability and progress in the country" - junta shorthand for the
political opposition.
World leaders urged the generals to exercise restraint and address
the grievances of Myanmar's 53 million people who, in the last 50 years,
have watched their country go from being one of Asia's brightest
prospects to one of its most desperate.
China - the closest the generals have to a friend - has remained
silent apart from calling for national reconciliation and a "democracy
process that is appropriate for the country" at an Asia-Pacific summit
in Sydney earlier this month.
Yangon, Tuesday, Reuters.
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