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Crackdown in Burma

Military Junta Targets Journalists

Burma's military junta is continuing its bloody crackdown on protesters. People accused of having taken photos and leaking them to other countries have been detained, and journalists are being threatened by state radio.

Burma's state radio is currently berating and threatening journalists critical of the country's military junta, describing them as "public nuissances" and "saboteurs." Meanwhile, news agencies are reporting the arrests of several Burmese journalists.

The latest developments come less than 48 hours after security forces began a massive new offensive against supporters of the thousands of monks who began protesting two weeks ago because of a 100 percent rise in gasoline prices. Residents in the former capital city of Yangon said the forces arrested dozens after searching numerous homes in neighborhoods located near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's holiest Buddhist site and also a rallying point for the protests. Local sources said the crackdowns had been targeted. "Their crime," one witness said, "is that they gossiped and encouraged the monks."

Residents told the French news agency AFP that it was still unclear how many had been detained. "Many people were arrested during the night, but it is really hard to say exactly how many people were arrested. But none of the usual vendors around Shwedagon Pagoda can be found," one source told the agency.

Residents claim that Burmese accused of having taken photos of last week's crackdown and sending them out of the country have also disappeared. And no one is certain where they are being held. The Red Cross has been refused entry into Burma's notoriously brutal prisons for months now.

United Nations Development Program (UNDP) employee 38-year-old Mynt Ngwe Mon was arrested, along with her husband, brother-in-law and driver on Wednesday. The four were all released on Thursday, according to UNDP officials.

Meanwhile, US first lady Laura Bush appealed to Burma's military junta to free the way for the country to make a peaceful transition to democracy. "The United States believes it is time for General Than Shwe and the junta to step aside, and to make way for a unified Burma governed by legitimate leaders," she announced in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.