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Temat: Birma: moze cos w koncu drgnie?... (Unrest spreads in...
Jak w tytule... A tak przy okazji, podajcie jakie znacie kraje, poza Birma i Tajlandia, gdzie rzadza wojskowi...Unrest spreads in central Burma
Bangkok Post, 7/09/2550
Rangoon (dpa) - Anti-military protests spread Friday in central Burma where the country's military rulers have been forced to crack down on rebellious Buddhist monks, sources said.
Earlier this week Buddhist monks took to the streets in Pakokku, 530 kilometres north of Rangoon, to protest against the government's decision to double fuel prices last month and the arrests of more than 100 protestors in Rangoon.
Of Friday the dissent had spread to nearby Aung-lan town, 515 kilometres north of Rangoon, where anti-government posters were put up around the town encouraging the masses to rise up.
Burma's state controlled media on Friday admitted for the first time that the military regime was at loggerheads with rebellious Buddhist monks in Pakokku, central Burma.
The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, acknowledged that security personnel had clashed with hundreds of protesting monks on Wednesday in Pakokku and were forced to disperse the demonstration by firing over the heads of the monks.
The state media also confirmed reports that 20 Magway Division military officials had visited the Bawdimandine monastery in Pakokku on Thursday and had their vehicle burned by 50 stone-throwing monks. The government officials spent several hours in the monastery before making their getaway in the evening.
According to eyewitnesses in Pakkaku, monks on Friday attacked the Nay La Store owned by a prominent government official and allowed a mob to sack the place. Government officials were reportedly fleeing the city.
Buddhist monks have a long history of political activism in Burma, a predominantly Buddhist country.
The monkhood played a prominent role in Burma's struggle for independence from Great Britain in 1948 and joined students in the anti-military demonstrations that rocked Burma in 1988, which ended in bloodshed.
Like the recent protests, the 1988 mass demonstrations were sparked by rising discontent with the military's mismanagement of the economy and refusal to introduce some semblance of democracy.
After the 1988 events, the military, although still very much in charge, dropped its socialist ideology and opened the country up to foreign investments and market forces.
But the generals' brutal 1988 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, that left an estimated 3,000 dead, resulted in the severing of nearly all international aid to the regime.
The aid blockade and other sanctions have been kept in place for the past 19 years. Although the military allowed a general election in 1990 it ignored the outcome when 80 per cent of the votes went to the National League for Democracy (NLD) of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sealing its pariah status in the West.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been under house arrest since May, 2003. Her ongoing incarceration was harshly criticized earlier this week by US President George W Bush, who is currently attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Sydney.
