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2 Myanmar protests verge on mass
movement By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - Popular protests have spread
across Myanmar, putting the authoritarian military
government's hold on power to a crucial and
potentially volatile test. The demonstrations that
started against the ruling junta's fuel-price
policy now threaten to become a full-blown mass
political movement due to the military's
heavy-handed handling of protesters.
Many
political activists are already starting to draw
comparisons between recent events and the
pro-democracy demonstrations in
1988
that forced longtime military leader General Ne
Win to resign. Mass protests involving students,
civil servants, workers and Buddhist monks then
brought the country to a standstill for months
until armed soldiers brutally crushed the movement
and reasserted the military's hold on power
through a coup.
For the first time since
those tragic and momentous events, the military
government faces concerted and growing public
protests, which political analysts believe could
easily escalate to a popular demand for the end of
military rule. The State Peace and Development
Council's (SPDC's) drive to introduce
neo-liberal-inspired economic reforms, including
last month's sudden and unexpected withdrawal of
fuel subsidies, has apparently backfired badly.
Public protests are rare in Myanmar, where
the regime maintains strict social controls.
Military leaders apparently did not foresee or
plan for the protests that have attended their
shock-therapy policies. Whether the public anger
snowballs into a full-blown mass movement, as
happened in 1988, depends largely on how the
historically heavy-handed regime responds in the
weeks ahead.
The violent tactics employed
by the regime to quell the protests so far,
however, do not augur well for future stability.
Small, peaceful protest marches have continued for
weeks in Yangon, Myanmar's main commercial city
and until recently the national capital.
They have since spread to several other
parts of the country, including crucially the
central town of Pakokku, near Mandalay, where an
estimated 100 Buddhist monks recently spearheaded
the unrest, including taking government officials
hostage and burning their cars. The military
eventually fired warning shots, and one monk was
badly hurt in the melee.
The junta has
long fretted about politicized monks - who command
deep respect among the population and many of whom
are known to sympathize with opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. Since
the early 1990s, the military have effectively
controlled the Buddhist governing religious bodies
by retiring, replacing and relocating
known-dissident abbots.
But the recent
clergy-inspired violence and the military's
violent response may yet prove to be a watershed
moment. The monks have demanded an apology from
the government for its use of force, but to date
junta leaders have failed to reply. In the
meantime, in an unprecedented move, police and
security forces have been deployed outside the
monasteries in the key Buddhist cities of
Mandalay, Pakkoku and Yangon to prevent the monks
from staging further protests.
Nonetheless, the monks have expressed
their particular concerns about the government's
reported use of armed civilian vigilante groups to
counter and contain protesters. Since the protests
erupted last month, the authorities have arrested
hundreds of people. The junta has often used
pro-government thugs to disperse the crowds
violently and deter journalists from recording
events.
The vigilantes are known to be
part of a pro-government community group, the
Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA), which the regime often deploys to drum up
popular support for the junta and is expected to
morph into a full-fledged political party with the
SPDC's promised transition to democracy. USDA
vigilantes launched an assassination attack on Suu
Kyi in May 2003, and many of her National League
for Democracy supporters were killed in the
violent exchange.
Now the USDA's special
security force, known as the Swan Arrshin, is at
the forefront of countering the current protests.
"The members of this group have been especially
trained in crowd control and the violent
suppression of protests," a Western diplomat in
Yangon told Asia Times Online. "We have had
reports of its foundation to act as a security and
intelligence wing since the beginning of the
year."
Many former criminals recently
released from prison have reportedly been
recruited as vigilantes, according to diplomatic
sources in Yangon. At least 600 convicted
criminals were released from Yangon's notorious
Insein Prison in recent months and recruited by
the USDA into the Swan Arrshin, the sources say.
The pro-democracy opposition in Yangon puts the
figure at closer to 2,000 members.
"It is
the use of these thugs which has particularly
upset the Buddhist clergy. Pitting Buddhist
civilians against other Buddhist civilians
disturbs social harmony," said a senior Buddhist
monk in the central city of Mandalay, who spoke by
mobile telephone. "The government should not
condone this practice, let alone promote it."
Popular protest leaders The
junta has a potentially bigger problem in dealing
with the 88 Generation Student group, which was
involved in organizing the original protests. The
dissident group's key leaders, including
internationally renowned poet Ming Ko Naing and
the charismatic Ko Ko Gyi, were released from
prison two years ago after spending nearly 14
years behind bars and are known to command immense
respect among the local population.
The
authorities detained nearly 20 of the group's
members immediately after the first protest and
they are being interrogated in Insein Prison.
There have been unconfirmed reports that one of
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