Monks refuse to return to temples

Yangon - More than 30,000 Buddhist monks, nuns and laymen marched through the streets on Yangon Monday in a swelling display of barefoot rebellion against the country's military regime.

For the seventh consecutive day thousands of monks marched first to the Shwedagon Pagoda, in the heart of Yangon, by noon before spreading out to other holy spots in the former capital.

Up to 5,000 of the monks passed by the headquarters of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which is headed by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. NLD officers cheered the monks as they passed.

The road to Suu Kyi's house, where she has been kept under arrest since May, 2003, was heavily barricaded to prevent the monks from visiting her as they did on Saturday, eyewitnesses said.

A sea of monks and their followers had surrounded the Sule Pagoda, in the heart of downtown Yangon, by Monday afternoon, and another 15,000 protesters gathered around the Kyimyindine Pagoda, in the northern part of the city.

It was the seventh straight day of Burma's maroon-robed rebellion which has thus far been without violence. But on Monday, there were signs that a clash was looming.

Laymen who joined the monks carrying placards with political slogans were roughed up by pro-government thugs and had their posters taken away, eyewitnesses said.

The monks marched in the streets Monday despite an order by the military-controlled Buddhist clergy, the Sangha Nayaka Committee, to city temples to send all visiting monks back to their provinces.

Many of the participating monks are from temples outside of Yangon, visiting the former capital for religious studies during Buddhist lent.

Monday's protest was bigger than Sunday's, when more than 10,000 laymen joined approximately 3,000 marching monks and 300 nuns, many of whom shouted political slogans for the first time, calling on the ruling regime to free opposition leader Suu Kyi.

A confrontation between the military and monks seems inevitable, Western diplomats said.

"We expect some kind of a resolution in the next few days," said one Western diplomat. "Either the protests go up or go down, but it can't go on like this."

Burma's military, which has ruled the country since 1962, has killed protesting monks before, most recently in the 1988 anti-government demonstrations.

But this is the first time Myanmar's 400,000-strong Buddhist monkhood has taken a lead in the protest movement, pitting rifles against robes in a looming confrontation that could easily spark an uprising if mishandled.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has a long history of mismanagement. It was their decision on August 15 to more than double local fuel prices overnight, without a system of gradual hikes and no prior warnings to the public, that has led them to the current predicament.

Peaceful demonstrations against the fuel hikes started in Yangon on August 19, but were quickly suppressed by authorities who arrested more than 100 protest leaders.

The protest movement was then picked up by Burma's monkhood earlier this month, and has now spread nationwide.

Myanmar's junta has kept a tight lid on discontent for the past 19 years, cracking down on all shows of student-led protests and dissent from opposition politicians such as Suu Kyi's supporters.

The monks' movement has put Burma's regime in an awkward position. If the rulers do not crack down on the protests, the demonstrations are likely to spread, but if they attack the monks, they would enrage the people.

Buddhist monks have a history of political activism in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country.

The monkhood played a prominent role in Burma's struggle for independence from Great Britain, which came in 1948, and joined students in the anti-military demonstrations that rocked Burma in 1988 and ended in bloodshed.

Like the recent protests, the 1988 mass demonstrations were sparked by rising discontent with the military's mismanagement of the economy and refusal to introduce some semblance of democracy.

In September 1988, the army cracked down on the pro-democracy movement, leaving an estimated 3,000 dead. (dpa)