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Published on September 28, 2007

The violent crackdown on tens of thousands of pro-democracy protestors continued throughout Burma yesterday, killing nine people, including a Japanese newsman, in the commercial capital of Rangoon.

Burma's state media broadcast said another 11 demonstrators were injured, including one woman, along with 31 security forces, the evening television bulletin said.

"The protesters threw bricks, sticks and knives at the security forces, so because of the desperate situation the security forces had to fire warning shots," it said.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was working for APF News, a video and photo agency based in Tokyo, a spokesman for the company was reported by Agence France-Presse as saying.

"Something deplorable is happening there," Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters before the Burmese ambassador, Saw Hla Min, visited the Japanese foreign ministry in the evening. "We must consider what on earth we should do to resolve the situation."

Witnesses told the Associated Press that five men were arrested and severely beaten after soldiers fired into a crowd near a bridge across the Pazundaung River on the east side of downtown Rangoon.

The scenes of naked defiance and anger at the junta that has ruled Burma for more than four decades have underlined the depth of resentment over the crackdown that began on Wednesday.

Since then at least four people including three monks have been killed, with at least 100 injured and hundreds more arrested.

"Come on, just kill me!" a furious woman shouted as police and soldiers poured into the streets. "I don't care."

An elderly man screamed at them: "You are eating food given to you by the people. Yet you kill people and you kill the monks!"

"This is so brutal," said one woman who wept as she spoke. "How can they do this to us, even though they are Buddhists?"

Security forces have been trying to crush the protests, which have marked the biggest public challenge to the junta's rule in 20 years.

But the live rounds, baton charges and tear gas failed to deter the people from returning to the streets in their tens of thousands yesterday.

When the warning shots and ultimatums came, they ran for their lives, along the roads and overhead walkways, into houses and doorways and towards the outskirts of the city.

But in a sign of their determination, they regrouped in large numbers, in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the heavily armed troops.

Schools, restaurants and most shops were shut. Away from the hot spots the normally crowded streets were largely deserted except for a few women who dashed out to buy food at the handful of market stalls that dared to open.

In eastern Rangoon, crowds gathered around the Ngwekyaryan monastery that was raided overnight by security forces.

Some cried openly as they saw how the monastery had been trashed, leaving the ground carpeted with broken glass and spent bullet cartridges, and belongings strewn around the rooms.

A photo of the abbot had been ripped from the wall and thrown to the ground. Some of the monks who escaped returned after dawn with visible wounds, some bleeding from their shaven heads.

Agencies,The Nation