Myanmar forces arrest 100 monks

YANGON – About 10 000 anti-government protestors gathered in downtown Yangon yesterday, provoking soldiers to fire on the crowds with tear gas and resume the crackdown that has drawn international appeals for restraint by Myanmar’s ruling junta.

The demonstrators gathered at Sule Pagoda and shouted at the soldiers, angry about early morning raids by security forces on Buddhist monasteries. Soldiers reportedly beat up and arrested more than 100 monks, who have spearheaded the largest challenge to the junta since a failed uprising in Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1988.Tensions mounted elsewhere when truckloads of pro-junta thugs arrived at the Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery about 8 kilometres north of downtown Yangon, the largest city in the isolated Southeast Asian nation.About 250 men carrying bamboo poles and truncheons surrounded the monastery compound.Riot police fired tear gas at a crowd of some 1 500 supporters of the monks.The government acknowledged that at least one man was killed and others wounded in chaotic clashes in Yangon on Wednesday.Led by thousands of monks in their maroon robes, protestors have been demanding more democratic freedoms, the release of political activists and economic reforms in the impoverished nation.Myanmar’s state-run newspaper yesterday blamed ‘saboteurs inside and outside the nation’ for causing the protests in Yangon, and said the demonstrations were much smaller than the media are reporting.”Saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion,” said The New Light of Myanmar, which serves as a mouthpiece for the military government.In Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, about 50 monks confronted soldiers when they tried to block the Buddhist clergy from marching out of a monastery.About 100 onlookers shouted and jeered at the soldiers.Also yesterday, security forces arrested Myint Thein, the spokesman for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, family members said.An Asian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi remained at her Yangon residence where she has been detained for 12 years.Rumours had circulated that she had been taken away to Yangon’s notorious Insein prison.Nampa-APSoldiers reportedly beat up and arrested more than 100 monks, who have spearheaded the largest challenge to the junta since a failed uprising in Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1988.Tensions mounted elsewhere when truckloads of pro-junta thugs arrived at the Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery about 8 kilometres north of downtown Yangon, the largest city in the isolated Southeast Asian nation.About 250 men carrying bamboo poles and truncheons surrounded the monastery compound.Riot police fired tear gas at a crowd of some 1 500 supporters of the monks.The government acknowledged that at least one man was killed and others wounded in chaotic clashes in Yangon on Wednesday.Led by thousands of monks in their maroon robes, protestors have been demanding more democratic freedoms, the release of political activists and economic reforms in the impoverished nation.Myanmar’s state-run newspaper yesterday blamed ‘saboteurs inside and outside the nation’ for causing the protests in Yangon, and said the demonstrations were much smaller than the media are reporting.”Saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion,” said The New Light of Myanmar, which serves as a mouthpiece for the military government.In Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, about 50 monks confronted soldiers when they tried to block the Buddhist clergy from marching out of a monastery.About 100 onlookers shouted and jeered at the soldiers.Also yesterday, security forces arrested Myint Thein, the spokesman for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, family members said.An Asian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi remained at her Yangon residence where she has been detained for 12 years.Rumours had circulated that she had been taken away to Yangon’s notorious Insein prison.Nampa-AP