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Myanmar's Patience With Monks Waning

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The Associated Press

Published: September 25, 2007

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military government issued a threat Monday to the barefoot Buddhist monks who led 100,000 people marching through a major city in the strongest protests against the repressive regime for two decades.

The warning shows the increasing pressure the junta is under to either crack down on or compromise with a reinvigorated democracy movement. The monks have taken their traditional role as the conscience of society, backing the military into a corner from which it may lash out again.

The authorities did not stop the protests Monday, even as they built to a scale and fervor that rivaled the pro-democracy uprising of 1988 when the military fired on peaceful crowds and killed thousands, terrorizing the country. The government has been handling the monks gingerly, wary of raising the ire of ordinary citizens in this devout, predominantly Buddhist nation.

Monday night, however, the religious affairs minister appeared on state television to accuse the monks of being manipulated by the regime's domestic and foreign enemies.

Meeting with senior monks at Yangon's Kaba Aye Pagoda, Brig. Gen. Thura Myint Maung said the protesting monks represented just 2 percent of the country's population. He suggested that if senior monks did not restrain them, the government would act according to its own regulations, which he did not detail.

Also Monday, the White House threatened additional sanctions against the Myanmar regime and those who provide it with financial aid. President Bush is expected to announce the sanctions today at the U.N. General Assembly. The United States restricts imports and exports and financial transactions with Myanmar, also known as Burma.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged authorities in Myanmar to exercise restraint in the face of the protests and expressed hope the military-led government would 'seize this opportunity' to include all opposition groups in the political process.

The current protests began on Aug. 19 after the government sharply raised fuel prices in what is one of Asia's poorest countries. They are based, however, in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the repressive military government that has ruled the country in one form or another since 1962.

'I don't like the government,' said a 20-year-old monk participating in the protest in the central city of Mandalay. 'The government is very cruel and our country is full of troubles.'

Ordinary people have similar views, even if they may not act on them.

'I don't like the government because it only thinks about itself. But there is nothing I can do. If I join the protest, I will lose everything,' said a hotel worker, also in Mandalay. Both she and the monk asked not to be named for fear of the authorities.

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