Tens of thousands of people joined streams of Buddhist monks on marches through Burma’s capital on Monday in the biggest demonstration against the ruling generals since they crushed student-led protests nearly 20 years ago.
”I’m very excited and, frankly, I’m worried too,” a teacher said as she watched the massed opposition to 45 years of army rule that has impoverished the nation of 53-million people.
In 1989, the military junta officially changed the English version of the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar. Burmese opposition groups continue to use the name ”Burma” since they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government nor its authority to rename the country.
In the north-west coastal town of Sittwe, residents said it seemed the entire population of more than 100 000 people was marching with the monks. ”I’ve never seen such a big crowd in my life. The whole town came out,” one said.
Protests were also held in Mandalay, where 10 000 monks and people took to the streets, and in Bago, just north of Yangon.
In Yangon, five columns of maroon-robed monks, one stretching more than a kilometre, marched from the Shwedagon Pagoda, the devoutly Buddhist country’s holiest shrine, to the city centre where thousands of people filled five blocks.
”People locked arms around the monks. They were clapping and cheering,” a witness said on the sixth day of marches by monks, some of them carrying placards calling for ”Better living conditions” and the ”Release of political prisoners”. Another banner said: ”May the people’s desire be fulfilled”.
After holding prayers at the Sule Pagoda in the main business district, a crowd estimated at up to 100 000 marched to another pagoda and dispersed peacefully.
For the first time, the marchers included MPs elected in 1990 from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) two days after a dramatic appearance of support for the monks by detained NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
‘It’s about reform’
What began as anger at last month’s shock fuel-price rises has become a wider movement against the generals, with one monk group calling for peaceful mass protests until the junta falls.
”There’s no prospect now of the monks just deciding to abandon this. They are getting braver every day and their demands are getting greater every day, and it’s much more overtly political,” a Yangon-based diplomat said.
”It’s now about Aung San Suu Kyi; it’s about reform. The monks have got numbers and, if not immunity, then certainly it’s much more difficult for the government to crack down on them than ordinary civilians.”
The United States, the loudest Western critic of the regime, expressed sympathy for the protesters and denounced the military.
Burma’s regional neighbours, long frustrated by the generals’ refusal to speed up reforms, looked on with worry. ”We hope that the ongoing protests will be resolved in a peaceful manner,” said the Foreign Ministry of Singapore, one of Burma’s biggest foreign investors.
There were no signs of trouble during Monday’s protests, but rumours of an imminent crackdown — one suggested hospitals were being emptied of non-critical patients — swirled in Yangon.
The generals are due to hold a quarterly summit soon in their new capital of Naypyidaw, carved out of the central jungle. Dealing with the protests is sure to top the agenda.
The protests began on August 19 and soon prompted a round-up of the democracy activists who organised them and now face up to 20 years in jail. As the protests have grown, they have drawn public declarations of support from the famous.
The country’s biggest stars of the stage, screen and music, including Tun Eindra Bo — Burma’s equivalent of Angelina Jolie — have formed a ”Sangkha support committee” and pledged to provide the monks with whatever assistance they need.
”The fact these celebrities are joining in is very significant,” said one Burmese exile who listened to them giving interviews on Burmese-language foreign radio stations. ”The committee said they will move on with the struggle until the end,” the exile said. — Reuters
Additional reporting by Ed Cropley