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Published on September 25, 2007

As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched yesterday through Rangoon - the largest demonstration in Burma's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military.

Marching for more than five hours and over at least 20 kilometres, a last hard-core group of more than 1,000 monks and 400 sympathisers finished by walking up to an intersection where police blocked access to the street where democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest.

Making no effort to push past, the marchers chanted a Buddhist prayer with the words "May there be peace", and then dispersed. About 500 onlookers cheered their act of defiance, as 100 riot police with helmets and shields stared stonily ahead.

Some participants claimed there were several hundred thousand marchers in their ranks, but an international aid agency official with employees monitoring the crowd estimated the size was well over 50,000 and approaching 100,000. From the front of the march, witnesses could see a two-kilometre stretch of eight-lane road filled with people.

Washington has urged Burma's military rulers to show "restraint" in dealing with the mass protests and said it hoped for dialogue between the regime and the demonstrators.

Britain warned Burma against any violent crackdown on mass protests against the military regime, but said it welcomed the largely peaceful response so far.

Germany expressed its "sympathy" with peaceful demonstrations against Burma's military regime and demanded the release of protesters arrested during the marches.

The current protests began on August 19 as a movement against economic hardship, after the government sharply raised fuel prices. But they have their basis in long-standing dissatisfaction with the repressive military government.

After a week of marching by the monks, the protests have become explicitly political, though the clerics prefer to make their point indirectly through chants and prayers at key locations.

Members of the public who have joined them have taken up chanting the slogans of the pro-democracy movement: national reconciliation - meaning dialogue between the government and opposition parties - freedom for political prisoners, and pleas for adequate food, shelter and clothing.

Yesterday's march, launched from the Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's most sacred shrine, gathered participants as it wen-ded its way through Rangoon. Some 20,000 monks took the lead, with onlookers joining in. Students also took part, passing by the old campus of Rangoon University, a hotbed of protest in past times.

Saying prayers for peace, they also passed the offices of the Defence Ministry and the residence of Senior Gen Than Shwe, head of the ruling junta. Security forces were not in evidence for most of the march route, aside from the police and their vehicles near Suu Kyi's house.

In the central city of Mandalay, about 1,000 monks marched.

Diplomats and analysts said Burma's military rulers were showing unexpected restraint this time because of pressure from the country's key trading partner and diplomatic ally, China.

Agencies

RANGOON