MYANMAR: Monks stage biggest anti-junta march in Myanmar

Buddhist monks and nuns stage biggest anti-junta march in former capital Yangon against Myanmar's military rulers. At least 5,000 monks and nuns, applauded by thousands of onlookers, held another protest on Sunday (September 23), marching through the centre of the former capital Yangon to express opposition to Myanmar's ruling generals. Earlier on Sunday, the monks and nuns prayed at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, devoutly Buddhist Myanmar's holiest shrine. It was one of five protest marches by monks in the city and there were at least two in Mandalay, a major centre of monkhood, ahead of a quarterly summit of the generals who have ruled the former Burma for 45 years. There were no signs of trouble at Sunday's protests. Plainclothes police kept watch, but there were no uniformed officers or soldiers in sight and people on the streets applauded as the marchers passed. The mood was cheerful, with many people in Yangon seeing the emergence of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from her lakeside villa as a sign the military, which put down a 1988 uprising ruthlessly, was being flexible. It was the first time the Nobel laureate had been seen in public since her latest detention began in May 2003. The protests, which began on August 19, after huge fuel price increases and prompted midnight raids to round up the democracy activists who organised them, appear far from over. A group calling itself the All Burma Monks Alliance urged ordinary people for the first time "to struggle peacefully against the evil military dictatorship" until its downfall. Until now the monks, fearing reprisals against civilians and to ensure the protests in Yangon and other cities remained peaceful, have discouraged others from joining the marches.

ITN Source | September 24, 2007

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