'6,000 held' as Burma smashes revolution
Pastor Dale Morgan
'6,000 held' as Burma smashes revolution*
ETHAN MCNERN AND AUNG HLA TUN IN RANGOON
BURMESE authorities are holding about 6,000 anti-government protesters
at four sites, including the notorious Insein prison and a racecourse, a
dissident group, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said yesterday.
DVB, which has continued to broadcast TV and radio into Burma from its
Norwegian base in Oslo, added that at least 138 people were killed in
last week's protests.
"Our own estimate is about 6,000 people detained, not killed, but
detained," including about 2,400 monks, said DVB's chief editor, Aye
Chan Naing. He said they were being held in at least four places: the
Insein prison; a pharmaceutical factory; a technical institute and a
disused racecourse.
Ominously, it was reported many would be sent to prisons in the far
north of the country.
Monks appear to be paying a heavy price for spearheading the
demonstrations. An Asian diplomat said all the arrested monks were
defrocked and made to wear civilian clothes. Some were likely to face
long jail terms, the diplomat said.
Insein prison, near Rangoon, was built by the British during the
colonial period. It is now the junta's maximum security jail. One
dissident who was held there has described it as the "darkest hell-hole
in Burma".
The junta has been forced to use other facilities to hold people simply
because of the numbers it has picked up.
Meanwhile yesterday, General Than Shwe, the junta's leader, stalled a
United Nations envoy, Ibrabim Gambari, for yet another day, putting off
the apparently onerous task of hearing international demands for an end
to Burma's harsh crackdown on democracy advocates.
Mr Gambari has been in the country since Saturday with the express
purpose of seeing the general, but the junta's top man has apparently
been too busy.
Gen Than Shwe, 74, is frequently rumoured to be in poor health, but he
has a well-deserved reputation as a military hard-liner who pays scant
regard to the cares and concerns of the outside world.
Instead of the meeting that he had hoped for, Mr Gambari was shipped out
yesterday to Lashio, a remote northern town for an academic conference.
In a sign yesterday that the junta was confident it had squeezed the
life out of the uprising, barbed-wire barricades were removed from the
Shewdagon Pagoda, a rallying point for monks leading the marches in Rangoon.
However, soldiers and security men were searching people for cameras.
The internet, by which images of the crackdown reached the world, also
remained unavailable.
Public anger ignited on 19 August after the government raised fuel
prices, then shifted into mass protests led by Buddhist monks against 45
years of military dictatorship. Soldiers responded last week by opening
fire on unarmed demonstrators. The government said ten people were killed.
Among residents in Rangoon, there was a palpable sense yesterday that
the strongest anti-democracy protests since 1988 had once again failed.
"The people are angry, but afraid; many are poor and struggling in life,
so they don't join the protests anymore," said Theta, 30, a university
graduate who is now driving a taxi.
Other Burmese were more despairing. "The people are enraged, but they
could not do anything because they're facing guns," said a 68-year-old
teacher. "I think the protests are over because there is no hope
pressing them."
Mark Canning, Britain's ambassador, said China had pushed for Mr
Gambari's mission to be as far-reaching as possible, getting permission
for him to fly to Naypyidaw, where he met the acting prime minister.
He then returned to Rangoon for an hour with the opposition leader and
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for
nearly 12 of the past 18 years.
"There's been an evolution in his programme. The initial pitch was
minimalist. It's got a bit better, and we want to see it get better
still," Mr Canning said.
STALLONE IS HORRIFIED
SYLVESTER Stallone yesterday said he and his crew on the Rambo movie
sequel witnessed the human toll of unspeakable atrocities while filming
along the Burmese border.
"I witnessed the aftermath - survivors with legs cut off and all kinds
of land mine injuries ... and ears cut off. We hear about Vietnam and
Cambodia and this was more horrific," he said.
Stallone returned eight days ago from a film shoot on the Salween River
separating Thailand and Burma.