And it is only the beginning.
And think about this for a minute: Can ANYTHING be WORSE than BEATING DOWN NON-VIOLENT Buddhist monks?
Talk about looking terrible in front of the world; it is as if clergy were shot down on the streets here in AmeriKa!
Didn't they break a minister's leg in D.C.?
Anyway...
"Myanmar Raids Monasteries Before Dawn" by SETH MYDANS
BANGKOK, Sept. 27 — Beginning the second day of their crackdown on nationwide protests in Myanmar before dawn today, security forces raided at least two Buddhist monasteries, beating and arresting dozens of monks, according to reports from the capital, Yangon.
Facing its most serious challenge since taking power in 1988, the ruling junta is attempting to contain the uprising by tens of thousands of monks who have been at the heart of more than a week of huge demonstrations against economic hardships and the political repression of the military junta.
[Yeah, conditions must be ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL to get a bunch of Buddhist monks all pissy!]
On Wednesday, in a chaotic day of huge demonstrations, shooting, teargas and running confrontations between protesters and the military, many people were reported injured and half a dozen were reported to have been killed, most of them by gunshots.
The Associated Press reported that more shots were fired today at one of several monasteries raided early in the day, Ngwe Kyar Yan, where one monk said a number of monks were beaten and at least 70 of its 150 monks were arrested.
A female lay disciple said a number of monks were arrested at a second monastery, Moe Guang, which was being guarded, like a number of other monasteries, by a contingent of armed security personnel.
The government began its violent crackdown Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever-larger protests in cities around the country, clubbing and tear gassing protesters, firing shots into the air and arresting hundreds of the monks and their supporters. The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever larger protests in cities around the country. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air and arrested hundreds of the monks who are at the heart of the demonstrations.
A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.
Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.
[Talk about your SLANTED TERMINOLOGY!!
They are getting MOWED DOWN!!!
Calling PEACEFUL Buddhist monks STORMTROOPERS!
Says all you need to know about the Zionist-prismed Times.
Think Israel's occupation and stormtroopers get this kind of scrutiny, or is that type excused?]
Though the crowds in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, were large and energetic on Wednesday, they were smaller than on previous days, apparently in part because of the deployment of armed soldiers to prevent monks from leaving some of the main temples.
[Democracy Now said the New York Times lied:
"Jeremy Woodrum is the co-founder of the US Campaign for Burma. He helped spearhead a successful nationwide boycott of the Burmese military government and organized delegations to visit refugee camps near the Burma-Thailand border:
"I think that most people in the United States have failed to grasp the severity of the situation inside Burma. In 1988, there was an uprising and a crackdown similar to what's happening now, in which hundreds of thousands of people came onto the streets, and the military regime opened fire and executed over 3,000 people.
But since that time, and especially in the last ten years, the military regime has destroyed 3,000 villages in eastern Burma, which was what the content in that documentary is about. And just to put that in context, that's twice as many villages as have been destroyed in Darfur. You have a million-and-a-half refugees fleeing out of the region into neighboring countries and Thailand. The regime has recruited more child soldiers than any other country in the world, and they're using forced labor and rape as weapons of war....
It's just unconscionable what they're getting away with there. I mean, when a country can destroy 3,000 villages -- and these are civilians I’m talking about here, who are fleeing a military regime -- and there be no consequences whatsoever...
At the same time, we're really appealing for Americans, and especially to progressives in the United States, to step forward right now during this crisis. The demonstrators in Burma are peaceful and nonviolent, and they are showing that there is an alternative to war as a way to bring about change in a country. And everyone who believes in that as an idea needs to step forward in support. They shouldn't have to carry the struggle on their own backs and lead it on their own. So if you believe in peace and you believe in nonviolence, please, take some time out of your day today to support our work. Visit our website and get involved....
We fear a bloodbath. And I think that’s beginning to happen. During the national uprising in 1988, which was very similar to this one, when the regime executed those thousands of people, it didn't simply play out over a week. I read in the New York Times a few weeks ago that they said that the demonstrations were winding down, which was completely incorrect."
Oooooo, kay.
I'm going back to the crappers now, dear reader.
Sorry I blasted my blog because of my frustrations with their lying to us.]
But it appeared that an attempt by the military to halt the protests through warnings, troop deployments and initial bursts of violence had not succeeded. Political analysts said the next steps in the crackdown might be yet more aggressive and widespread.
The foreign diplomat described an amazing scene on Wednesday as a column of 8,000 to 10,000 people flooded past his embassy following a group of about 800 monks.
They were trailed by four truckloads of military men, watching but not taking action. The diplomat, in keeping with his embassy’s policy, spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to news reports and telephone interviews from Myanmar, which is sealed off to foreign reporters, the day’s activities began with a confrontation at the giant gold-spired Shwedagon Pagoda, which has been one of the focal points of the demonstrations.
In the first reported violence in nine days of demonstrations by monks in Yangon, police officers with riot shields dispersed up to 100 monks who were trying to enter the temple, firing tear gas and warning shots and knocking some monks to the ground. As many as 200 monks were reported to have been arrested at the pagoda.
Several hundred monks then walked through downtown Yangon to the Sule Pagoda, another site of the demonstrations, where truckloads of soldiers were seen arriving Tuesday. A violent confrontation was reported there; more shots were fired and a number of arrests were made.
On a broad avenue near the temple, hundreds of people sat facing a row of soldiers, calling out to them, “The people’s armed forces, our armed forces!” and “The armed forces should not kill their own people!”
[Yes! That's right!]
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, more than 800 monks, nuns and other demonstrators were confronted by some 100 soldiers who tried to stop them from marching from the Mahamuni Paya Pagoda, which they had tried to enter earlier, The Associated Press reported.
The demonstrations in Yangon have grown from several hundred people protesting a fuel price rise in mid-August to as many as 100,000 on Sunday, led by tens of thousands of monks in the largest and most sustained protests since 1988.
That earlier peaceful uprising was crushed by the military, which shot into crowds, killing an estimated 3,000 people. It was during the turmoil that the current military junta took power in Myanmar, and it has maintained its grip by arresting dissidents, quashing political opposition and using force and intimidation to control the population.
[And they are DOIN' IT AGAIN!]
Now, emboldened by the presence of the monks, huge crowds have joined the demonstrations in protests that reflect years of discontent over economic hardship and political repression.
At first, the government held back as the protests grew. It issued its first warning on Monday night, when the religious affairs minister said the government was prepared to take action against the protesting monks.
On Tuesday night, the government announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew, banned gatherings of more than five people and placed the cities of Yangon and Mandalay under what amounts to martial law. Troops began taking up positions at strategic locations around Yangon and tried to seal off five of the largest and most active monasteries.
As the protests grew, public figures began to come forward, and on Tuesday the government arrested the first of them, a popular comedian, Zarganar, who had urged people to join the demonstrations. He had irritated the government in the past with his veiled political gibes.
[Arrested a COMEDIAN? It's as if they arrested Seinfeld here!]
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and antiapartheid campaigner, have spoken out in support of their fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, who has been held under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years."
"Police target protesters; many held" by Edward Cody/Washington Post September 27, 2007
BANGKOK - Ending nine days of restraint, Burma's military rulers cracked down on protesting Buddhist monks yesterday, with security forces firing warning shots, shooting tear gas canisters, swinging truncheons, and making scores of arrests to suppress antigovernment marchers.
[Not good, Generals!]
The violence, despite appeals for negotiations from around the world, suggested that the junta has decided to put an end to what has become the most serious political uprising since 1988, even at the price of more opprobrium from abroad.
Burmese security forces raided several Buddhist monasteries today, arresting hundreds of monks, who have led the biggest protests against military rule in 20 years, witnesses told Reuters.
At least 200 monks were detained in predawn raids on two monasteries in Rangoon, a day after tens of thousands of protesters defied warning shots, tear gas, and baton charges meant to quell the demonstrations, Reuters reported.
Troops also swooped in on at least two monasteries in northeastern Burma, where large antigovernment protests have been held in the past week. Up to 500 monks were arrested at the Mogaung monastery in Yankin Township, and 150 were detained at the Ngwe Kyaryan monastery in South Okkalapa Township, witnesses said.
"Only two or three sick monks were left behind," a person who lives near the Ngwe Kyaryan monastery told Reuters.
Maung Maung, secretary general of the National Council of the Union of Burma, an exile group based in Thailand, said he had reports from a Rangoon hospital that four protesting monks were treated for bullet wounds and a fifth had died after being shot. The government said one person had been killed.
[This is absolutely outrageous!
They are KILLING NON-VIOLENT, PEACEFUL MONKS!!!!!!!]
Khim Maung Win of the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition media organization based in Norway, said eight people - five monks and three civilians - were killed, the Associated Press reported.
The reports represent the first serious casualties in the near-daily protests that have shaken Burma for the past 10 days, swelling into an open challenge to the generals who have run the country for most of the past half-century.
Despite the crackdown, thousands of maroon-robed monks, joined by cheering students and other lay democracy activists, marched in two columns through the center of Rangoon, Burma's largest city, picking up support as they went, according to exile groups, news agency dispatches, and images transmitted from the country electronically.
Exile groups in Thailand estimated that the number of marchers and protesters on the sidelines reached more than 100,000 by the end of the afternoon, making it one of the largest demonstrations since the rebellion began. Other big gatherings were reported in Mandalay, the second-largest city; in Sittwe on the northwest coast; and in several other towns across the country.
The protesters poured into the streets in defiance of orders handed down Tuesday evening banning gatherings of five or more people and imposing a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Rangoon and Mandalay.
According to exile sources and news agency accounts, one group clashed with police near Shwedagon Pagoda, a shrine that has been the departure point for daily protest marches since the middle of the month. Monks burned two cars, and some were beaten by police wielding truncheons, according to reports reaching the exile groups.
[I tend to doubt that:
"As a preemptive warning against any "agent provocateur" violence is this quick quip from a Boston Globe editorial:
"The generals are faced with crucial decisions. They may allow the protests to continue and risk being compelled to preside over a genuine democratic transition. They might go so far as to insert soldiers with shaved heads among the monks to stage a violent incident that the junta may use as an excuse to fire on the demonstrators (Boston Globe September 25, 2007)."
[So if ANY VIOLENCE OCCURS, you KNOW WHO to BLAME!!!!
;-) ]
A confrontation also erupted outside Sule Pagoda, another shrine that has been the destination for marches, as young monks tried to force their way through a police line, the reports said. Several monks were seen being hustled away by police and driven off in trucks, the Associated Press reported.
Exile groups in Thailand estimated that more than 200 may have been arrested in all. One of those taken into custody, the AP said, was a prominent comedian known as Zarganar, who with other cultural figures had openly backed the monks.
The shootings occurred during a third clash, near the Bahan District, Maung Maung said he was told by informants in Rangoon.
The bulk of yesterday's protesters marched through the city peacefully on the way to Sule Pagoda. But they were turned back by a cordon of armed soldiers and police with tear gas and truncheons. It was near the Sule temple that several thousand government opponents were killed in 1988 by troops putting down protests against the military's ruling State Peace and Development Council.
The soldiers who put down the 1988 uprising had been transferred into Rangoon from outlying areas because of fears that the city's normal garrison would not move against civilians. According to Maung Maung, there are signs that similar hesitations are arising in the Burmese military this time.
[That is GREAT, GREAT NEWS!!!!
Turn on the generals, military, turn on the generals and FREE YOUR PEOPLE!!!!]
A declaration from a group calling itself the People's Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance was circulated among exile groups. In it, the authors described themselves as military officers and called on fellow officers to disobey if ordered to fire on protesting monks, students, or democracy activists.
The statement, using initials for the junta:
"On behalf of soldiers, we the People's Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance seriously and categorically warn the SPDC's top brass that if they solve the present situation with violence rather than seek peace, divergences would emerge inside the armed forces and defiance or mutiny would break out."
Maung Maung said there was no way to judge the authenticity of the statement or how many officers it represented."
[I guess we will find out... or will we?]
