Human shield forms to protect Burma monks

Published on Sunday 30 September 2007 01:23

WORLD leaders last night increased the pressure on Burma's military junta to stop their bloody crackdown as protesters once more ventured onto the streets.

About 300 people marched through the city's Chinatown district waving the peacock-emblazoned flags of the democracy movement.

They were greeted by applause from onlookers before the army arrived in force to break up the protest. Witnesses said several men were dragged away to waiting trucks.

The latest protest came as UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari began a mission to the country, hoping to convince the junta to end its the vicious tactics against a people's movement aiming to end 45 years of military rule.

"We are not very hopeful, but it's the best shot we have," Singapore's foreign minister, George Yeo, said at the UN headquarters in New York.

For ordinary Burmese people, however, hope was slipping away rapidly, with soldiers and police seizing control of the streets, scattering the few demonstrators who dared to venture out. Buddhist monks who have spearheaded the movement during the past month, galvanising crowds of some 70,000 to denounce the military regime, have been sealed in their monasteries.

Meanwhile, Burma's main political and economic allies, China and Japan, joined other nations around the world in urging the country to use peaceful means to restore stability.

The US called on "all civilised nations" to press Burma's leaders to end their crackdown on demonstrators.

Japan, which is Burma's biggest aid contributor, lodged a protest over the death of a Japanese journalist, who was among at least nine people killed on Thursday when soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said in a telephone conversation with Gordon Brown that China was "very much concerned about the current situation" in Burma.

"China hopes all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and use peaceful means to restore its stability as soon as possible," Wen said.