Standoff between troops and monks in Yangon (5th Lead)

Sep 26, 2007, 10:01 GMT

The scene on the streets of Yangon Myanmar, 26 September 2007, as riot police and soldiers use batons and teargas to beat back monks and laymen from entering Yangon‘s holiest shrine, the Shwedagon Pagoda, in a crackdown on a week-long barefoot rebellion in Myanmar‘s former capital. EPA/THE IRRAWADDY

   Yangon - Myanmar troops used batons and tear gas Wednesday to keep tens of thousands of marching monks and their layman followers out of Yangon's holiest shrines in a standoff between rifles and rust-coloured robes that is expected to end in bloodshed.

Barricaded police and soldiers beat monks and laymen back from the east gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda with batons and tear gas twice Wednesday afternoon, leaving dozens injured.

There were unconfirmed reports of two monks dying in the melee.

At least 30 monks and 50 civilians were taken away in military vehicles to an unknown destination.

   Monks have used the Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon's most revered temple, as a launch pad for their peaceful marches for the past nine days.

The show of force, however, failed to stop the monks from marching elsewhere.

About 10,000 monks wove their way through Yangon streets Wednesday afternoon heading for the Sule Pagoda, where they were pushed back by more troops armed with shields and batons, eyewitnesses said.

Myanmar's military, after issuing several warnings to the monks for the past two days, deployed its troops against the protest for the first time in nine days of protest marches in Yangon.

   At least 12 truckloads, each carrying about 40 police and soldiers, were dispatched Tuesday night to City Hall after tens of thousands of monks defied a government order to end their protest marches and return to their temples.

   Dozens of military trucks and jeeps were seen parked outside the City Hall compound, but the troops were out of sight Wednesday morning. Police and military personnel were guarding the four gates of the Sule Pagoda, which sits in the centre of a traffic circle in front of City Hall.

The pagoda in the centre of downtown Yangon has been where the monks have congregated, joined by thousands of laymen, over the past four days in a show of defiance against Myanmar's military junta.

   The marching monks appeared determined to take to the streets again Wednesday despite signs that a confrontation is looming. As on past days, they were to first meet about noon at the Shwedagon Pagoda and then march on Sule Pagoda.

   'We are even ready to die,' one Yangon temple abbot told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Various human rights groups and crisis-management organizations have called on Myanmar's allies such as China, India and South-East Asian nations to intervene to prevent a bloodbath in Yangon.

'The Burmese military has shown in the past a willingness to kill peaceful protestors to end demonstrations,' said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. 'If the military government is going to listen to anyone, it will be countries with which it has close military and economic ties. Now is the time for these countries to show that they care about the health and welfare of the Burmese people.'

   Yangon's barefoot rebellion, which started September 18, drew up to 100,000 followers Monday and Tuesday.

   But signs early Wednesday indicated that the junta was preparing to spill blood as it did in September 1988 when the army unleashed its fury on pro-democracy mass demonstrations, killing up to 3,000 people, including hundreds of protesting monks.

   Around midnight, the government announced via public loudspeakers that a 60-day curfew had been imposed in the city from 9 pm to 5 am.

   Yangon General Hospital had been instructed to clear wards in preparation for an influx of patients, hospital sources said.

   In 1988, Myanmar was rocked by nationwide rallies against the military regime's incompetent rule, which had dragged the country down from one of the wealthiest in Asia prior to World War II to an economic basket case by 1987.

   Economic hardships are partly behind the latest protests.

   Without warning or consultations, the government more than doubled fuel prices on August 15, exacerbating overnight the plight of Myanmar's impoverished people. The country has suffered double-digit inflation since 2006.

   Anti-inflation protests started building on August 19 in Yangon, led by former student activists and opposition politicians. Last week, the movement was taken up by the monks.

   Myanmar's 400,000-member Buddhist monkhood has a long history of political activism in Myanmar, having played a pivotal role in the independence struggle against Great Britain in 1947 and the anti- military demonstrations of 1988.