Burma's protesting monks ordered to return to temples

More than 10,000 Buddhist monks and laymen marched through the streets of Yangon

In a new form of public protest, thousands of Buddhist monks have been staging peaceful marches in Rangoon daily since last Tuesday. Many of the participating monks are from temples outside of Yangon, visiting the former capital for religious studies during Buddhist lent.

The saffron-robed rebellion arguably peaked on Sunday, 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 Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Saturday an estimated 700 monks visited the Yangon compound of Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since May 2003, prompting a rare public appearance by the Nobel peace laureate who is still seen as the heart and soul of Burma's pro-democracy movement.   

More marches are planned on Monday, in open defiance of the Sangha Nayaka Committee, comprising so-called "government monks," sources said.

The organisation behind the protesting monks has ordered monasteries in Yangon to contribute monks to Monday's march.  

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 Burma'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 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 long history of political activism in Burma, 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.

The generals at the time vowed to never allow a repeat of 1988, a vow they have carried out through the suppression of any show of unrest in the country.

Although the military allowed a general election in 1990, it ignored the outcome when 80 per cent of the votes went to the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi's party. Its refusal to acknowledge the NLD electoral win has made the junta a pariah in the West.

//(Deutsche Presse-Agentur)