Protests in Burma

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As an update on Burma, I have been following with interest the recent protests taking place in the capital this week. It's interesting because this stuff almost NEVER happens there (protests that is). I think it's probably a good thing I'm not in yangon anymore! it's strange though, when they talk about the man who got arrested for protesting outside the US embassy, to think that I walked by it just a couple weeks ago!

Below is a reuter's article if anyone is interested on the situation there.

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Myanmar junta squashes more protests in Yangon

YANGON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Supporters of Myanmar's military rulers broke up a small protest in Yangon on Thursday as the arrest of 13 prominent dissidents did little to quash public anger at soaring fuel prices and falling living standards.

The latest confrontation between the junta and its opponents attracted growing international attention as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for restraint and a senior U.S. congressman denounced Myanmar's "military thugs."

After a tense stand-off, 30 marchers who had been walking toward the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy were forced into trucks belonging to the junta's feared Union Solidarity and Development Association, or USDA.

A Reuters reporter was told not to take photographs and was chased from the scene.

Later, ex-political prisoner Ohn Than staged a one-man demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy, shouting slogans in English and Burmese for 10 minutes.

Police took away the 61-year-old man, who had called for the military junta to honor the results of a 1990 election it lost by a landslide, then annulled, witnesses said. The junta has ruled the former Burma for the last 45 years.

There was no word in the army-controlled media on the fate of the 13 dissidents arrested on Wednesday night, who included Min Ko Naing, the country's second-most prominent activist after detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Five women and a man picked up by the USDA after a small demonstration on Wednesday in north Yangon were released.

In New York, Ban called on Myanmar's authorities "to exercise maximum restraint in responding to any demonstrations and encourages all parties to avoid any provocative action."

In Washington, Tom Lantos, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called for the release of Min Ko Naing. "Yet again, Burma's military thugs are fattening their own pockets by using gangster tactics to grind the Burmese people into deeper despair," he said.

China and Russia have blocked Western bids for serious action against Myanmar by the U.N. Security Council.

SMALL CONCESSION

For a second day, armed police and truckloads of USDA men armed with spades and brooms took up positions in the center of the former capital.

However, in an apparent concession to the widespread outrage over last week's surprise fuel price increases, bus fares for the shortest journeys were halved.

The junta's doubling of diesel prices and a five-fold increase in the cost of compressed natural gas had brought Yangon's bus networks to a standstill and stoked discontent in the city of 5 million people.

Analysts said the hard-core dissidents, still-influential leaders of a 1988 mass student uprising suppressed by the army with large loss of life, would continue to express public discontent.

But they said the junta's action may have prevented the series of small social protests from snowballing.

"These people have vowed to continue the struggle at all costs," said Aung Naing Oo, a 1988 protester who fled to Thailand to escape the bloody military crackdown.

"But I doubt a large majority of people will participate. Small gatherings of 100 here, 200 there, will go on -- but the emphasis is on the word small," he said.

Myanmar, the world's largest rice exporter when it won independence from Britain in 1948, is now one of Asia's poorest countries.

Suu Kyi, who won the 1990 landslide election victory at the helm of her National League for Democracy party, has spent most of the past 17 years in prison or under house arrest. (Additional reporting by Ed Cropley in Bangkok and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations)

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Comments

[Justin]

You think before the chased off the reporter, they charged him $10 for taking photos? Looks like you got out of there just in time.