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[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Myanmar monks seize govt officials, burn cars
By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Several hundred young monks in military-ruled  
Myanmar took a group of government officials hostage inside their  
provincial monastery on Thursday and burned four of their cars, a  
witness said.

The officials had gone to the monastery in the town of Pakokku, 600  
km northwest of Yangon, to apologise for soldiers firing shots over  
the heads of protesting monks on Wednesday, the witness said.

They had also wanted to ask the abbot of the Mahawithutayama  
monastery, the town's biggest, to stop monks taking part in the  
sporadic marches that have broken out in the former Burma in the last  
two weeks against soaring fuel prices, she added.

A crowd of up to 1,000 people gathered outside the gates. There was  
no immediate sign of military or police.

Soldiers fired the warning shots to halt a protest march of up to 500  
monks reciting Buddhist scriptures and waving banners condemning huge  
fuel price increases last month.

It was the first time troops had been called in during two weeks of  
rare dissent. Hitherto, the military had responded by arresting  
leading dissidents and sending pro-junta gangs onto the streets of  
Yangon to break up protests.

More than 100 people have been arrested in the crackdown, one of the  
harshest since the army crushed a nationwide uprising of monks,  
students and government workers in 1988, when around 3,000 people are  
thought to have been killed.

The military has been loathe to put soldiers on the streets, perhaps  
mindful of the 1988 bloodshed, a watershed moment in Myanmar's post- 
independence history.

Intervening against monks in Pakokku is particularly risky for the  
junta as the town is only 80 miles from the second city of Mandalay,  
the religious heart of a devoutly Buddhist nation and home to 300,000  
monks.

Historically, monasteries have played a major role in political  
uprisings, both in 1988 and in revolts against colonial master Britain.

A resident of Mandalay said the atmosphere in the town was very  
tense. News reports from dissident organisations suggest the generals  
who first seized power in 1962 have been pressing the heads of  
Mandalay's monasteries not to become involved.

"They seem to be more nervous. Once the monks in Mandalay start to  
rise, they won't be able to control it," a Yangon-based politician  
said this week.


Copyright © 2007 Reuters



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