Burma

09/27/2007

Several Dead in Burma

Soldiers Open Fire on Protesters

Several people have been killed, including a Japanese photographer, as the Burmese military opened fire on thousands of demonstrators in the city of Yangon on Thursday. Many have been badly beaten after early morning raids on Buddhist monasteries.

Several people have been reported killed in the Burmese city of Yangon, including a Japanese photographer, after government forces opened fire with automatic weapons on a crowd of anti-government protestors Thursday. The Japanese Foreign Ministry informed the Associated Press that Burmese officials notified them of the deaths of a number of protestors, including one carrying a Japanese passport.

The shootings came after several thousand demonstrators ignored warnings by Burmese soldiers to disperse. A number of arrests were made with other protesters being severely beaten by the government troops. In other parts of Yangon, which used to be the capital city, police fired warning shots into a crowd of up to 70,000 sending thousands running through the streets to escape the bullets. Prior to the shootings, trucks of soldiers had driven through the city warning the crowds to go home or risk being shot.

Those confronting the government in Yangon are angry at early morning raids of several monasteries involved in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Hundreds of monks were reportedly arrested in the raids with several being beaten. A monk at Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery showed an AP reporter blood stains on the floor and said that shots were fired into the air during the raid.

"Soldiers slammed the monastery gate with the car, breaking the lock and forcing into the monastery," the monk, who declined to give his name out of fear of reprisals, told AP. "They smashed the doors down, broke windows and furniture. When monks resisted, they shot at the monks and used tear gas and beat up the monks and dragged them into trucks."

While the government has publicly admitted to only one death in the crackdowns so far, dissidents outside the country say they know of at least eight deaths, including monks. Many had thought that the monk-led protest would be immune from government violence in this devoutly Buddhist country.

China, one of the closest allies of the military junta which leads Burma, publicly called for restraint from both the Burmese government and the demonstrators on Thursday. It was the first time since the beginning of the protests -- which got their start in mid August as a result of skyrocketing fuel prices in the country -- that Beijing has spoken up.

"As a neighbor, China is extremely concerned about the situation in Myanmar," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters. "We hope that all parties in the Myanmar issue will maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have currently arisen so they don't … affect Myanmar's stability and even less affect regional peace and stability."

Still, it is unlikely that China would support UN-led sanctions against Burma, as many countries have called for. But the US and the European Union have both introduced new sanctions on the Burmese military dictatorship. The EU on Thursday agreed to consider imposing even more restrictions on the country.

"The crucial point is how to take measures that can have an impact on those who are responsible for events in the country without harming the population," EU spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio told reporters.

The protests on Thursday were the tenth consecutive day of pro-democracy activism in Burma, with many shouting "Give us freedom, give us freedom," as the army fanned out across the city. They are the largest demonstrations since a student-led, pro-democracy movement was crushed in 1988 with the loss of some 3,000 lives.

Burma's state-run paper on Thursday blamed "saboteurs inside and outside the country" for the violence and claimed the protests were much smaller than the numbers being reported in the world press.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, in Beijing on Thursday, called on China to help restore peace in Burma. "We all need to agree on the fact that the Burmese government has got to stop thinking that this can be solved by police and military, and start thinking about the need for genuine reconciliation with the broad spectrum of political activists in the country," he said.

cgh/ap/reuters

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