The Times UK
Thursday 04 October 2007
To the handful of monks still remaining at Ngwe Kya Yan monastery - bruised, scared and in shock - it must have seemed that everything was over. The soldiers and police made their first swoop in the early hours, cracking skulls, firing rubber bullets and dragging away more than 70 monks to secret detention centres.
The ones who escaped returned at daybreak to their smashed and looted monastery, the blood of their brothers still glistening on the stone of the courtyard.
By late afternoon, the soldiers and police returned to finish the job, but then something remarkable happened: thousands of men, women and children emerged from the surrounding houses of South Okkalopa township, converged on the narrow streets leading up to the monastery and trapped the soldiers and police inside. For more than six hours, the unarmed crowd prevented security forces from taking the monks away - until they were dispersed in a onesided street battle in which police reportedly shot dead at least two people.
It was a scene repeated at monasteries and pagodas across Rangoon. At nearby Kyaik Ka San, Moe Kaung and Mahar Bawdi, local people defended the monks with their lives. In the end, their attempts appear to have been unsuccessful, but the remarkable risks they took demonstrate the depth of popular affection for the monks and the continuing loathing for the junta, despite its success in quelling last week's Saffron uprising.
Who will win? Can the world help?
What can the world do about the situation in Burma? Will it make any difference? Who, if anyone, can really have an influence?
"People knew that they had no weapons, no strength at all against the armed military," said a local. "But still they can raise their voices to demand the safety of the monks."
Rumours of local people defending monks have been circulating since last week. Yesterday The Times met two men, an engineer and a merchant seaman, both in their 40s, who witnessed the struggle at Ngwe Kya Yan. It took place last Thursday, at the height of the Government's crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrations. After a week and a half of swelling protests, the junta finally made its move and removed the heart of the protests - the monks.
Under cover of the recently announced curfew, security forces raided monasteries and pagodas across the city. At about 2am they descended on Ngwe Kya Yan, smashing windows, decapitating statues of Buddha, stealing gold jewellery and cash, and thrashing the monks with cudgels made from freshly cut bamboo.
Early the next morning, the director-general of Burma's Religious Affairs Department visited the monastery to ask its abbot to leave for the Kaba Aya Pagoda in another part of the city. The engineer, who was there, said that the abbot told the official: "I will not abandon this place." He said: "The director-general told the monks to clean up all the blood, but they refused, because they wanted to show what had happened." At 11.30am, after the official delegation left, the soldiers and police returned, accompanied by members of an official militia called Masters of Force, which is frequently used by the Government to terrorise its political opponents. The engineer said: "From every side . . . people came out and surrounded the monastery. The soldiers and police inside began to panic because they cannot leave."
Ngwe Kya Yan played a pivotal part in the last mass uprising against the junta, in 1988. The junta killed thousands of people in response while protesters lynched and beheaded several suspected government spies. The merchant seaman said: "The monks at this pagoda were very famous as negotiators between the people and the military in 1988. They saved the lives of some spies." He said that the locals had great affection and respect for their religious neighbours. "They \ give free lessons to the children before their exams, and they are very respected by the people."
The stand-offs at Ngwe Kya Yan and nearby Kyaik Ka San took a turn for the worse after military reinforcements arrived. Soldiers surrounded the protesters and at 2pm began firing smoke grenades and rubber pellets at them. Burmese journalists claimed that they also fired live rounds at the crowds, killing two, including an 18-year-old schoolboy. The engineer said: "I didn't see it myself, but people who were in the crowd said that he \ was shot through the forehead. They kneeled down and took up shooting positions and aimed. They were deliberately targeting him."
Security forces reportedly shot dead two people at Kyaik Ka San, and fatally wounded another when he accidentally leaned on his car horn after being ordered to turn around. It took the forces until 6pm to disperse the crowds and arrest the monks.
Yesterday Reuters reported that 80 monks and 149 women believed to be Buddhist nuns had returned to their monasteries in the first large-scale release of detainees. Five journalists were also released, including Min Zaw, a veteran correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Shimbun. The engineer said: "We have no leaders now, and there is such an imbalance of power between the people and the Army. We have no arms, no equipment, but we cannot let the military Government carry on with this situation."
Myanmar Junta Tightens Screws
By Aung Hla Tun
Reuters
Thursday 04 October 2007
Yangon - Despite gradually easing its iron grip on Myanmar's main city on Thursday, the junta continued to round up scores of people and grill hundreds more arrested during and after a ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy marches.
In the first official remarks since a visit by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari this week, junta chief Than Shwe said he would talk to detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi if she abandoned her "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions.
Than Shwe told Gambari that Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, was "confrontational" and for "utter devastation," state television said without explaining what the last accusation meant.
He told Gambari that if Suu Kyi "announces publicly she has given up these four things, he would hold direct talks" with her, it said.
Gambari was dispatched to Myanmar to persuade the generals to end their ruthless crackdown on protests and talk to Suu Kyi, but reports of verbal and physical abuse suggest Than Shwe is paying scant regard to his calls for restraint.
"That is one of the top concerns of the international community," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, due to attend a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on Friday to discuss the crackdown in a country now under military rule for an unbroken 45 years.
Jailed for Clapping
A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.
"They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment - maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand during a crackdown on a student-led uprising in 1988.
Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said.
People in central Yangon's Kamayut district said soldiers had arrested scores of people on Wednesday night for trying to impede a raid on the Aung Nyay Tharzi monastery a few days earlier and giving protection to fleeing Buddhist monks.
Another 70 young monks rounded up in other swoops across the city a week ago were freed overnight from a government technical institute, complementing 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns released on Wednesday.
One freed monk, who did not want his name revealed, said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity, birthplace, parents and involvement in the protests, the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years.
"The food and living conditions were horrible," the monk, from Yangon's Pyinya Yamika Maha (A) monastery told Reuters.
Among those detained in the middle of the night on Wednesday was a Myanmar U.N. staff member and her two relatives. They were released, along with her driver, on Thursday, a U.N. source said.
The evening state news broadcast said that since the crackdown on peaceful protests led by monks began last week, 2,093 people had been arrested and 692 released after interrogators deemed them innocent.
India Protest
The junta's crackdown has provoked scores of protests around the world and on Thursday hundreds of Buddhist monks in yellow robes marched in India chanting hymns, and waving placards that read "Stop Killing" and "No violence against democracy."
Gambari was to brief Ban after arriving in New York on Thursday in the midst of international outrage at the use of soldiers against peaceful columns of Buddhist monks and civilians demanding an end to military rule.
Official media say 10 people were killed, including a Japanese video journalist, although Western governments say the final toll is likely to be far higher.
The body of 50-year-old Kenji Nagai, shot dead near Yangon's Sule Pagoda, returned home on Thursday for an autopsy whose results could lead to Tokyo making good on a threat to scale back economic assistance to Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest countries.
Fears of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in a crackdown lasting several months, were not realized, but even China, the junta's closest ally, made a rare public call for restraint.
China praised Gambari's mission - which Western diplomats said Beijing helped facilitate - saying it gave his efforts a "positive appraisal."
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