Myanmar monks protest
Nagarjuna N
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_re_as/myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar - Hundreds of defiant monks marched through Yangon on
Tuesday, walking 10 miles through streets lined with cheering crowds,
after being barred from Myanmar's most important Buddhist temple,
witnesses said.
The marches were the latest in a series of anti-government protests,
which began Aug. 19 after authorities raised fuel prices by as much as
500 percent, putting the squeeze on already impoverished citizens. The
protests have continued despite the detention of more than 100
demonstrators and the rough treatment of others.
At least 400 saffron-robed monks, walking in rows of two and three and
cheered on by thousands of onlookers offering water, were locked out
of Yangon's famous Shwedagon pagoda and then both the Sule and
Botataung pagodas. After pro-junta toughs and plainclothes police
intervened, the monks sat in the street and chanted before returning
to monasteries.
Some senior monks - generally seen as more conservative - also asked
the group of mostly young monks to end their march. The two groups
argued but finally the procession continued.
Meanwhile, in the city of Bago about 50 miles away, another 1,000
monks peacefully marched to the Shwemawdaw pagoda, residents said.
Witnesses in both cities spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisals.
Soldiers and armed police were deployed near some major monasteries
with truckloads of barbed wire barricades waiting nearby.
Supporters of the country's junta government snatched video and still
cameras from some journalists and attempted to seize one journalist
and force him into a truck, witnesses said.
No one was arrested in Tuesday's marches, and both ended peacefully.
The monks gave authorities a Monday deadline to apologize for beating
hundreds of them two weeks ago when they marched peacefully in
Pakokku, a center of Buddhist learning, to protest the rising fuel and
consumer prices. The apology never came.
"We are grateful to the monks for making good on their promise despite
heavy security presence and obstacles," said a man who followed the
monks throughout the march. He refused to give his name for fear of
reprisal.
In addition to the protests, monks threatened to cut off contact with
the military and their families, and to refuse alms from them - a
humiliating gesture that would embarrass the junta.
Monks have been at the forefront of political protests in Myanmar,
also known as Burma, since British colonial times. Because they are so
revered by the public, repressing them is politically risky. The junta
is wary that demonstrations could gain momentum.
Tuesday's marches also marked the 19th anniversary of the coup in
Myanmar, in which the current junta took over after crushing a failed
pro-democracy rebellion that sought an end to military rule, imposed
since 1962. The anniversary was also commemorated by protesters in the
Philippines, India and New Zealand.
The junta held general elections in 1990, but refused to honor the
results when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League
for Democracy party won. Suu Kyi has been detained under house arrest
for more than 11 years.
---Teargas used
YANGON (Reuters) - Authorities in military-ruled Myanmar fired tear
gas on Tuesday to break up a protest of around 1,000 Buddhist monks
and civilian demonstrators in the northwestern city of Sittwe, a
witness said.
Three or four monks were arrested as the crowd scattered and were hit
and slapped, the witness told Reuters.
The march, one of several in response to a call for a nationwide
religious boycott of the former Burma's ruling military, started with
500 Buddhist monks but grew quickly as ordinary men and women -- some
of them Muslims -- joined in.
No further details were immediately available.
In Yangon, authorities closed the famed Shwedagon Pagoda, the
Southeast Asian nation's holiest shrine, minutes before hundreds of
monks arrived for the launch of a campaign to refuse to accept alms
from anyone connected to the regime.
"We could not hold the formal ceremony to impose the religious boycott
because we could not enter the Shwedagon compound," a 25-year-old monk
told Reuters.
The demonstrators then marched peacefully to the city centre, chanting
prayers and holy scriptures but no political slogans.
Plainclothes police and members of the feared Union Solidarity and
Development Association (USDA) shadowed their route. The USDA has
played a prominent role in breaking up protests against soaring fuel
prices that began four weeks ago.
They videotaped and photographed the monks, who were also watched by
hundreds of people, some of whom paid obeisance to them, witnesses
said. There were no arrests.
One middle-aged monk said the boycott would go ahead.
"For me, I have imposed it on them since 1990 and I'll keep it on," he
said.
A similar protest was held in Bago, 50 miles north of Yangon, where
exiled groups reported 1,000 monks marching to the town's pagoda.
Hundreds of monks also rallied in Chauk, Kyaukpadaung, Aung Lan and
Pakokku, witnesses said.
REFUSING ALMS
The Myanmar-language services of foreign broadcasters have said an
alliance of monks had demanded an apology for soldiers firing shots to
disperse a demonstration by monks in Pakokku two weeks ago.
Such a boycott is taken extremely seriously in the devoutly Buddhist
country. Without such rites, a Buddhist loses all chance of attaining
nirvana, or release from the cycle of rebirth.
Although the army has run Myanmar since a 1962 coup, September 18 is
the anniversary of the latest incarnation of the junta, which now goes
by the name of State Peace and Development Council.
Monks launched a similar boycott in 1990 shortly after the generals
refused to honour the results of a general election they had lost by a
landslide.
Earlier the monasteries were key players in a nationwide uprising
against military rule in 1988 and analysts say the generals have been
at pains to treat the monks carefully this time around.
Official newspapers have given prominent coverage to men in uniform
making donations in temples -- and having them accepted -- especially
in Mandalay, the nation's second city and home to 300,000 monks.