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Yangon's military leaders locked down monasteries, arrested dissidents and set up barricades across the city yesterday in an attempt to suffocate the waves of street demonstrations calling for an end to their rule.
They also tried to cut off ordinary people's communication with the outside world, heightening fears that the crackdown that appears to have knocked the wind from the demonstrations could become more violent.
A day after security forces killed at least nine demonstrators, dissident groups say the total could be as high as 200.
Hundreds again risked their lives to defy the Government in small but angry protests across the main city in Myanmar.
The cinnamon-robed monks, who have formed the backbone to the dignified protest of the past week, were largely gone. In their place were civilians, less disciplined and more angry, some wearing bandanas.
Shouting, jeering groups moved quickly around the city in an attempt to gather in large numbers. But the military, with soldiers packed in the back of trucks, raced after them, quickly breaking up gatherings with threats and force.
In Thanwe township, a decaying residential area in north-east Yangon, witnesses said soldiers fired shots amid skirmishes with protesters. "It's finished!" shouted a soldier as a group of young men scattered. When faced with lines of soldiers with rifles and riot shields, some protesters threw rocks and bottles in retreat. It seemed the soldier's words may ring true. With the civilian leaders of the pro-democracy movement who organised the initial protests last month having been arrested and jailed, Burma's rulers seem to have the upper hand.
"Government go away!" a young man in a sarong and flip-flops shouted in English, banging on the roof of our car as it moved through an agitated and disorganised crowd. One Western diplomat said hundreds of suspected dissidents were arrested in raids across the city yesterday, with 50 taken in one swoop alone.
The military had moved on the monks overnight, raiding monasteries that were identified as hotbeds of protest, beating them up by the dozen and shipping them back to their villages, all away from the eyes of the world. Yangon's temples, including the Sule and Shwedagon pagodas around which the monks had been rallying, have been declared "danger zones" and cordoned off with barbed wire.
Authorities shut Burma's only internet server and blocked all text and picture messaging on mobiles in an effort to stem the violent images leaving the country, including pictures of a Japanese photographer shot in front of the Sule Pagoda. Foreign journalists are banned and the regime ordered soldiers to go door-to-door at some hotels looking for foreigners.
There has been widespread outrage and words of encouragement, but so far no practical support from the outside world. The protesters' only fuel is pent-up anger at 45 years of unbroken military rule. Burma's generals have ruined this resource-rich country through mismanagement and greed.
A rise in fuel prices in August was the final straw for citizens who have kept quiet since a 1988 uprising was brutally crushed, killing up to 6000 people.
Last night, the UN's special envoy to Burma was heading to the country to promote a political solution and could arrive as early as today. Also the UN Human Rights Council announced it would hold a special session about Burma this week.
- THE INDEPENDENT
Junta ends communications
The junta in Myanmar has moved to sever the pro-democracy protesters' contact with the outside world by shutting down internet and telephone links.
Meanwhile officials in neighbouring Thailand said aeroplanes were on standby to evacuate foreigners in case the condition deteriorated.
In Geneva, diplomats said the UN Human Rights Council would call an emergency session on Myanmar after a petition led by Western countries gained the support of one-third of the body's 47 nations.
The generals, determined to staunch the flow of information about the civilian uprising to the outside world, have cut the public's internet access to prevent further footage being sent out.
