Armed police and pro-junta thugs move in to stop Burma protests

HUNDREDS of riot police, armed with assault rifles and tear gas, moved into position in Burma's main city Rangoon yesterday to prevent a new uprising by pro-democracy campaigners.

The sudden show of force after several weeks of relative quiet appeared aimed at forestalling any protests to mark the one-month anniversary of a key day in the anti-regime uprising by Buddhist monks, activists and ordinary citizens angry at the country's entrenched junta.

Security was especially tight at the eastern gate of the famed Shwedagon pagoda where monks were beaten as police broke up a protest on 26 September.

Barbed wire was erected around the area while police and pro-junta thugs also took up positions near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of the city and other sites of earlier protests.

Yesterday also marked the end of the Lent period, an important Buddhist holiday when monks can leave their monasteries to travel after several months of monsoon season retreats.

As they ordered the pre-emptive show of force, the military government also released at least 70 people who were arrested during the demonstrations.

The detainees, including 50 members of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, had been held in the infamous Insein Prison in Yangon, said National League for Democracy party spokesman Nyan Win. Among those released was an executive of the NLD, Hla Pe.

The government had earlier said it detained about 3,000 people in connection with the uprising but said it had since released most of them. There are many reports they have been mistreated in custody.

There were no immediate signs of any public protests yesterday but thousands of pilgrims thronged to the Shwedagon and other pagodas.

A Burmese reporter who tried to take a photograph of the pilgrims climbing up the eastern gate of the Shwedagon was immediately surrounded by nearly a dozen riot police and a police officer confiscated the flash card from the camera.

The reappearance of heavy security in Rangoon, also called Yangon, came a day after Ms Suu Kyi - under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years - met with a newly appointed Burmese government official, "minister for relations" retired major general Aung Kyi, as part of a United Nations-brokered attempt to nudge her and the military junta towards reconciliation.

"I hope this is the beginning of the [reconciliation] process," said Nyan Win, an NLD spokesman.

People in Rangoon also expressed hope the meeting might herald the start of meaningful talks between the generals and Ms Suu Kyi. "We were all really thrilled to hear this news. I hope it is the beginning of a turning point," teashop owner Ba Khin said.

The NLD won a 1990 election landslide but was denied the chance to take power by the military.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who was in Tokyo yesterday for talks with Japanese officials as part of a six-nation tour to drum up international pressure on Burma to end its crackdown on pro-democracy activists, said he welcomed the meeting.

"But it's only the first step, so this should lead to early resumption of talks that will lead to tangible results," he said.

However, some western diplomats and regime critics in Burma remained sceptical, noting that similar earlier meetings produced nothing and seemed merely aimed at easing international pressure on the junta.

"She's [Ms Suu Kyi] very conscious of the difficulties her people are experiencing," Mr Gambari said.

"Her concern is to put an end to the violence and that prisoners are released."

Japan, which is a major aid donor to Burma, cancelled a multi-million-pound grant for a business education project following the shooting death of Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai in Rangoon, while he was covering the September crackdown.

The junta has said ten people were killed during a crackdown on massive pro-democracy protests last month, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say thousands of others, including Buddhist monks, were detained.

THOUSANDS TRAVEL FOR CARE

TENS of thousands of people are travelling from Burma to Thailand to get medical treatment.

Burma has one of the world's worst healthcare systems, with many thousands dying each year from malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhoea and a range of other illnesses.

Only a few people can afford to pay hospital workers the various "fees" in the tightly controlled nation fuelled by corruption. Last year 100,000 Burmese visited the 120-bed Mae Tao Clinic in Thailand, where free care is offered.

"Even if you use the toilet in the hospital you have to pay money," said a 70-year-old man from Phyu Township.