Nine killed as Myanmar cracks down on protests
Thu Sep 27, 2007 4:16 PM EDT
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Soldiers and police fired into crowds of demonstrators in Myanmar's largest city and gave them 10 minutes to clear the streets or be shot on Thursday, with nine people killed in the second day of a crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years.
Far fewer demonstrators took to the streets as the military junta clamped down and soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night, rounding up hundreds of the monks who had been leading protests.
State television said at least nine people were killed.
One of dead was a Japanese photographer, shot when soldiers cleared the area near Sule Pagoda -- a focus of the protests -- as loudspeakers blared out warnings, ominous reminders of the crushing of a 1988 uprising in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
In another area of Yangon, soldiers opened fire into crowds after a military truck drove into protesters, onlookers said. Three people were killed on the spot.
As international concern mounted, U.S. President George W. Bush called on all countries with influence over Myanmar to tell the junta to stop using force, and met with China's foreign minister to press the point.
China, which neighbors Myanmar and is one of the military-ruled country's few allies, is seen as wielding considerable sway over the junta.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in an unusually blunt statement, demanded that member Myanmar stop using violence and voiced "revulsion" at the killings.
At Yangon's Sule Pagoda, 200 soldiers marched toward the crowd and riot police clattered their rattan shields with wooden batons.
"It's a terrifying noise," one witness said.
The army moved in after 1,000 chanting protesters hurled stones and water bottles at troops, prompting a police charge in which shots were fired. Continued ...
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.
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