| |
YANGON: More than 300 Buddhist monks on Wednesday took to the streets in Myanmar's main city of Yangon in the latest show of public defiance against the military government, one month after a series of protests began.
Chanting Buddhist prayers, a group of 100 monks marched in the rain in eastern Yangon while a separate larger group were heading toward the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most important landmark.
Dozens of plainclothes officials followed the monks with video cameras but the marchers were not impeded by police.
More than 300 monks tried to enter the pagoda on Tuesday but authorities sealed it off, forcing the protesters to march through the city. Hundreds of other people joined them.
Tuesday's rally in Yangon was among several protests by the clergy across the nation in the biggest anti-government demonstration in a decade.
The pagoda entrances remained closed Wednesday and under guard by about 100 plainclothes security officials.
Witnesses said members of the public only watched the monks march on Wednesday and did not join in.
Apart from Yangon, 300 other monks marched peacefully in Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city after Yangon, according to a website of the Irrawaddy, an exiled opposition news medium.
Myanmar's military government does not tolerate even the slightest show of public dissent. Authorities have arrested more than 150 people over a series of protests that began after a huge fuel price hike.
The government on Wednesday admitted using tear gas and firing warning shots in the air to break up about 1,000 Buddhist monks protesting the government in Sittwe, 560 kilometres (350 miles) west of Yangon.
The state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar said the protesters became "violent" and authorities "had to use tear gas and fired three shots in the air to disperse the crowd."
One official and nine policemen were injured, the paper said in a rare admission about the use of violence. But it added no protesters were hurt or arrested.
The Myanmar-language service of US-funded Radio Free Asia said at least three people were arrested.
Monks are widely respected and important cultural standard-bearers in devoutly Buddhist Myanmar.
Two weeks ago, soldiers beat protesting monks with bamboo sticks in Pakokku, near central Mandalay, prompting young monks to briefly kidnap officials at a monastery.
Tuesday's rally in Yangon was also significant because the monks took an oath to refuse alms from senior military officers -- a powerful sign of dissent in the devoutly Buddhist country.
Monks have demanded a government apology with threats to step up street protests.
"This is the beginning of popular mobilisations against the junta," said Aung Thu Nyein, a Thai-based Myanmar analyst, after Tuesday's protests.
Monks were credited with helping to rally popular support for a 1988 pro-democracy uprising crushed by the military when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing hundreds if not thousands of people.
- AFP/ir
|
