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Protesters defy junta

Photo: AFP

Yangon tense: Changes unfolded in Yangon, Myanmar, by the hour on Tuesday as the Buddhist monks and their supporters continued to stage their protest marches. Here, they swarm around the city hall and the Sule Pagoda, praying and chanting. By nightfall, the ruling military junta began mobilising troops at vantage points and slapped curfew. Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled a raft of new sanctions against the junta, including a visa ban on the top leadership. —

SINGAPORE: Defying the Myanmar military junta’s warnings against any further mass protest, nearly 50,000 Buddhist monks and an equal number of civilians swarmed the streets of Yangon and other centres on Tuesday.

It was as if a sea of humanity had surged on to the streets. But the junta stayed its hand and did not order crackdown, which was implicit in the warnings issued on Monday following a similar demonstration over economic and political hardship.

For the eighth consecutive day, the defiant monks led the protesters in peaceful marches in an ambience of prayerful chants and some slogans too. While the monks, traditionally held in high esteem, continued to lead the protesters, some among these civilians formed a “human chain” to protect the marching columns. Now and then, the monks, too, linked their arms in a show of solidarity.

Like on previous days, Buddhist places of worshipremained focal points of the protest marches. And, some portrait-sketches of Lord Buddha were carried, as if to define the spirit of the marchers.

Exclusive conversations with Myanmar’s dissident-activists in exile in neighbouring Thailiand, “secretly filmed” and televised video footages of the protest marches and reports from Yangon indicated a defiance of this dimension.

General Secretary of the National Council of the Union of Burma, Maung Maung, told The Hindu over telephone from Thailand that some minions of the regime had, at first, used loudspeakers to warn monks, nuns, and others against organising any protest marches today. Troops and security personnel were not very visibly deployed.

There were, of course, no confirmed signs of defection by soldiers to the ranks of protesters, but it was becoming “hard for the regime to crack down,” it was emphasised.

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