The appointment by Burma’s junta of one of its most trusted troubleshooters as a go-between for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi suggests the generals may be serious about negotiations. Aung Kyi is a major player within the junta and will act as more than an errand boy, those who know him say.
The Burma junta reduced security in Yangon sharply on Sunday, apparently confident it would face no further mass protests against military rule, but the streets remained unusually quiet and arrests continued. The few people on the streets said they were still fearful and the internet remained cut off.
Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party dismissed the Burma junta’s offer of talks as surreal on Friday as a United Nations envoy warned of ”serious international consequences” from the junta’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters.
Burma’s junta arrested more people under the cover of darkness on Wednesday despite a crescendo of international outrage during a keenly watched United Nations mission to bring an end to a bloody crackdown on protests. At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Rangoon.
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Burma junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday at the end of four-day mission to halt a bloody crackdown on the biggest democracy protests in 20 years. There was no word on whether Gambari’s single meeting with Than Shwe had persuaded him to relax his iron grip.
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/ 27 September 2007
Burma riot police charged a crowd of more than 1Â 000 protesters after they pelted soldiers with rocks and water bottles in central Yangon on Thursday and at least one person collapsed as shots were fired, witnesses said. One man was on the ground, unconscious, but it was not clear whether he was alive or dead.
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/ 27 September 2007
The Burmese junta was on Wednesday night trying to shut down internet and telephone links to the outside world after a stream of blogs and cellphone videos began capturing the dramatic events on the streets. In the past 24 hours observers monitoring the flow of information have noticed a downturn.
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/ 27 September 2007
Burma’s generals launched pre-dawn raids on rebellious monasteries on Thursday in their crackdown on the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years, defying desperate international calls for restraint. It was unusually quiet on the streets of Yangon, where troops killed an estimated 3Â 000 people in the ruthless suppression of a 1988 uprising.
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/ 24 September 2007
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. ”People locked arms around the monks. They were clapping and cheering,” a witness said.
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/ 21 September 2007
At least 3 000 people led by Buddhist monks marched along flooded streets in Yangon on Friday, piling pressure on Burma’s ruling junta in the most sustained challenge to its rule in nearly 20 years. About 1 500 cinnamon-robed monks marched barefoot through the city on Friday, attracting an equal number of followers.
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/ 19 September 2007
Thousands of Buddhist monks on Wendesday marched in protest against Burma’s military government one day after police fired warning shots and used teargas to disperse demonstrators. At least 2 000 monks turned out in the city of Sittwe, in north-west Burma, the scene of Tuesday’s clashes.