BurmaNet News, September 27, 2007

[Editor]

September 27, 2007 Issue # 3303

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Rangoon under siege
New York Times: Nine deaths reported in Myanmar crackdown
DVB: Residents surround security forces at raided monastery
Irrawaddy: They came in the night, ready to kill
The Nation: Burmese soldiers raid monastery and beat monks
Irrawaddy: Crackdown troops from division 77, says researcher
www.govtech.com: Internet, mobile phone lines cut in attempt to hide
Burma's peril
Khonumthung News: Burmese police pick up two prominent Chin politicians
Narinjara News: Army reinforces troops in Akyab with rural battalions

BUSINESS / TRADE
UPI: Analysis: Gas, oil get Myanmar off hook - Siobhan Devine
AFP: France not demanding Total pullout from Myanmar: minister

ASEAN
Irrawaddy: Asean countries voice concern over Burma's crackdown

REGIONAL
Wall Street Journal Online: Myanmar tests big neighbor
Irrawaddy: Indian MP criticizes government over Burma policy
Reuters: Thai PM urges Myanmar to avoid "harsh measures"

INTERNATIONAL
Reuters: Myanmar agrees to receive U.N. envoy
AP: Security Council urges restraint by Myanmar government and expresses
concern at its crackdown - Edith M. Lederer
AFP: Global outrage over Myanmar protest crackdown
AP: U.S. imposes economic sanctions on Myanmar government officials
AFP: US: Myanmar must end violence against demonstrators
New York Sun: Storm over Burma could spell Olympic boycott - Nicholas
Wapshott

OPINION / OTHER
UPI: Burma's Saffron Revolution - Awzar Thi
Asia Times: The man behind the Myanmar madness - Richard Ehrlich and Shawn
W Crispin

PRESS RELEASE
AHRC: ASIA: Protestors across Asia demand action on Burma; more rallies
planned

STATEMENT
Timor-Leste NGOs in Solidarity of Peaceful Demonstrations Led by Buddhist
Monks in Burma – Urging Government to Enter into Dialogue
Christian Solidarity Worldwide: CSW condemns crackdown on Burma protests

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 27, Irrawaddy
Rangoon Under Siege

Rangoon was covered with gunfire smoke on Thursday as security forces and
armed military troops used an iron fist to disperse tens of thousands of
demonstrators in the second day of the Burmese junta's crackdown on the
largest democracy uprising in 20 years. State media reported Thursday
evening that nine protesters were killed.

Witnesses in Rangoon believed that the death toll would be higher.
Security forces attempted to disperse tens of thousands of people gathered
near Sule Pagoda in Rangoon and South Okkalapa Township on Thursday
afternoon, witnesses said. The report could not be independently
confirmed. Scores of people were beaten by security forces.

Troops fired directly into protesting crowds, using automatic weapons on
at least one occasion. Warning shots were also fired above the heads of
protesters as an estimated 70,000 anti-government demonstrators braved the
overpowering force of the troops and security forces.

Protesters were outraged at security forces following an overnight raid on
at least three Buddhist monasteries. Soldiers reportedly beat up and
arrested about 700 monks, who had spearheaded the largest challenge to the
junta since a failed democracy uprising 19 years ago. One monk reportedly
died.

The Japanese Embassy reported on Thursday evening that a Japanese
photojournalist died in the gunfire. Pictures released on the Internet
show the journalist lying on his back in the street with one hand raised
up holding his camera. A soldier wearing flip flops is pointing his rifle
at the journalist. A second photograph shows the journalist's face
contorted and his arm now rests on the ground, apparently shot a second
time at point blank range. The photojournalist was Kanji Nagai, 51,
according to the Japanese video news agency APF News.

It is believed that security forces issued a 10-minute warning to the
pro-democracy demonstrators to disperse from the area around Sule Pagodas
or face "extreme action."

The gunfire came on the second day of a bloody crackdown that began on
Wednesday when five monks died from gunfire or were beaten to death by
security forces.

In other news, a number of foreign ambassadors are reportedly now in
Naypyidaw
to discuss the junta's actions during the crackdown. Some Western
governments are said to be considering pulling their embassies out of
Burma to protest against the military government's actions.

A spokesman for the monks told the international media on Thursday they
are demanding the junta lower fuel prices, release Aung San Suu Kyi from
house arrest and begin a real dialogue with the democratic opposition
leaders in the country. Similar demands have been made by many countries
and organizations in the recent past.

Overnight, more monks were surrounded and attacked in at least three
monasteries. One monk reportedly died and many were beaten. The hallways
and rooms of one monastery were splattered with blood. An estimated 700
monks were taken away by security forces.

Thousands of protesters who were dispersed when soldiers fired into the
demonstrators near the center of Rangoon on Thursday regathered and then
walked to Tamwe Township in eastern Rangoon, a protester told The
Irrawaddy. He said most of the protesters were determined to continue the
demonstrations despite the danger. After troops fired on the crowd, about
100 people were arrested and taken away.

Later in the day, protesters reached Tamwe Township where they were again
confronted by security forces who surrounded the protestors and fired into
the crowd.

A short while later, bloggers and e-mail reports said that military
vehicles were driving through the town firing randomly into peaceful
crowds, apparently in an effort to spark terror throughout the city.

Soldiers also entered Traders Hotel situated in the heart of Rangoon near
Sule pagoda on Thursday afternoon and searched it room by room, according
to sources. It was thought the soldiers were searching for foreign
journalists suspected of capturing video from a hotel room and reporting
clandestinely on the crackdown to international media.

At least three monasteries were stormed under gunfire by troops and riot
police early Thursday morning, reportedly killing one monk and injuring
many others. Only monastery sick-bay patients were left alone as the monks
were beaten, kicked and forced out of the monasteries and into waiting
vehicles. It was not known where they were taken.

In South Okkalapa Township, one center of resistance in the 1988 popular
uprising, tens of thousands of angry residents besieged security forces
guarding New Kyar Yan monastery. The monastery was broken into by troops
and riot police during the night and around 200 monks beaten and arrested.

“The troops are deploying themselves as if for action,” an eyewitness told
The Irrawaddy.

An army truck broke down the main gate of Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in the
early hours of Thursday morning and warning shots were fired as the monks
were rounded up, a local welfare worker told The Irrawaddy.

"The whole compound of the monastery is chaotic. Windows were smashed,
bullet casings littered the ground, and blood stained the concrete floor,"
he said.

Five hundred monks were arrested after security forces broke forcibly into
Mogaung monastery in Yankin Township, one eyewitness said.

Some who avoided arrest returned after daybreak, bleeding from wounds to
their shaven heads. A few said they had got away by climbing into trees
around the monastery.

Maggin monastery in western Rangoon, where HIV patients are cared for was
also raided. Witnesses said that soldiers and riot police stormed in,
beating up and hauling away four monks, including the abbot and four
people caring for HIV patients.

Burma’s monasteries are hotbeds of the pro-democracy movement. The current
raids seem to be in an apparent attempt to prevent further demonstrations,
which have been spearheaded by the Buddhist monks.

The security forces fired at protesters for the first time on Wednesday in
street protests that have grown over the past month into the biggest
demonstrations against Burma's military rulers since 1988.

____________________________________

September 27, New York Times
Nine deaths reported in Myanmar crackdown - Seth Mydans

Brutality and defiance marked the second day of an armed crackdown in
Myanmar today as the military junta tried to crush a wave of nationwide
protests in the face of harsh international condemnation.

The violence began before dawn with raids on Buddhist monasteries and
continued through the day with tear gas, beatings and volleys of gunfire
in the streets of the country’s main city, Yangon, according to witnesses
and news agency reports from inside the closed nation.

Witnesses said soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of
protesters. State television in Myanmar reported that nine people had been
killed and that 11 demonstrators and 31 soldiers were injured. The numbers
could not be independently verified, and exile groups said they could be
much higher.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that one Japanese national had been
killed, and there were unconfirmed reports of several other deaths,
including another foreigner. The Japanese Embassy said one of the dead was
a Japanese photographer, Kenji Nagai.

Despite a heavy military and police presence, protests gained momentum
through the day in several parts of the city. But with the authorities
clamping down on telephone and Internet communications, human rights
groups and exiles said they were having increasing difficulty in getting
information.

The violence of the past two days has answered the question of whether the
military would fire on Buddhist monks, the highly revered moral core of
Burmese society. For the past 10 days, the monks have led demonstrations
that grew to as many as 100,000 before the crackdown began.

“The military is the one who proudly claims to preserve and protect
Buddhism in the country, but now they are killing the monks,” said Aung
Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy, a magazine based in Thailand that has
extensive contacts inside Myanmar.

Like others monitoring the crisis, which began on Aug. 19 with scattered
protests against steep fuel price increases, he said it was difficult to
learn the numbers of dead in a chaotic situation in which hospital sources
are sometimes reluctant to talk. Mr. Aung Zaw said he had been told of one
death today when soldiers attacked two columns of monks and other people.

“The military trucks, I was told, just drove in, and soldiers jumped out
and started shooting,” he said, describing a scene that was reminiscent of
the mass killings in 1988, when the current junta came to power after
suppressing a similar peaceful public uprising. On Wednesday, the junta
acknowledged the death of one man, but news agencies and exile groups put
the number as high as seven.

Myanmar’s chief international patron, China, blocked an effort on
Wednesday by the United States and European countries to have the United
Nations Security Council condemn the violent crackdown. But today China
added its important voice to criticism from abroad when it publicly called
for restraint.

“As a neighbor, China is extremely concerned about the situation in
Myanmar,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a news
briefing in Beijing. “China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise
restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the
situation there does not escalate and get complicated.”

In January, China vetoed another move by the United States at the United
Nations to censure Myanmar, saying Burmese internal affairs had no effect
on peace and stability outside its borders.

Speaking in Beijing today, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill,
who was taking part in international talks on North Korea’s nuclear
program, said, “We all need to agree on the fact that the Burmese
government has got to stop thinking that this can be solved by police and
military.”

Superstitious Burmese had predicted violence on this date, whose digits
add up repeatedly to the astrologically powerful number 9: The 27th day of
the ninth month in 2007.

There was no indication that international pressure would have any more
effect on the junta than it has had over two decades of political pressure
or economic sanctions like those announced at the United Nations this week
by President Bush.

“The big missing piece of the puzzle is what is going on in the minds of
the senior leadership,” said Thant Myint-U, a former United Nations
official who is the author of a book on Myanmar, formerly Burma, called
“River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma.” “Nothing that they have
said in the last 20 years would suggest that they will back down,” he said

The government’s actions in the past two days seemed to bear this out.

In the raids early today, The Associated Press reported, security forces
fired shots at one of several monasteries, Ngwe Kyar Yan, where one monk
said a number of monks were beaten and at least 70 of its 150 monks were
arrested.

A female lay disciple said a number of monks were arrested at Moe Gaung
Monastery, which was being guarded, like a number of other monasteries, by
a contingent of armed security personnel.

Other unconfirmed reports from exile groups described scenes of brutality
and humiliation of monks and their superiors when soldiers entered the
monasteries.

“We were told by a lot of residents that the soldiers came in very rudely
and told them to kneel down,” Mr. Aung Zaw said. “Their senior abbot was
beaten in front of the others. They were told to walk like dogs. That news
quickly spread, and whether it is rumor or true, people got very, very
angry.”

Sunai Pasuk, a representative of Human Rights Watch in Thailand, said that
he was concerned about the apparently large numbers of arrests of monks
and lay people but that information about them was scarce.

Like others seeking news from inside the country, he said that the mobile
telephones of his sources had apparently been cut off. There were also
reports that the authorities were closing Internet cafes, where people had
been loading and transmitting images from their telephone cameras.

“We have lost all contacts inside Burma,” he said. “We cannot reach them
any more.”

Christine Hauser and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from New York.

____________________________________

September 27, Democratic Voice of Burma
Residents surround security forces at raided monastery

Local residents in South Okkalapa township have surrounded security forces
who returned to Ngway Kyar Yan monastery to arrest the abbot following
last night’s raids.

At least 130 monks were detained in the raid on the monastery, and
personal belongings including robes, rice and 2,000,000 Kyat in cash were
seized.

Security forces returned at around noon today to arrest the abbot and took
up positions surrounding the monastery.

But hundreds of thousands of local residents, outraged by the raids,
surrounded the troops, shouting anti-government slogans and demanding the
immediate release of the detained monks.

A large group of people also assembled at the junction of Weizayanar and
Dhittsar roads.

“The military is surrounding the monastery and firing warning shots to
disperse the crowds, but people are standing firm,” said a bystander.

The latest reports from the scene say that more people are joining the
crowds.

____________________________________

September 27, Irrawaddy
They came in the night, ready to kill - Shah Paung

The military government has no conscience and it’s cruel. It has no heart
or sympathy for its own people—not even respect for the monks.

The government’s forces beat and shot peaceful demonstrators and monks,
killing and injuring many of them.

Soldiers look into the innocent faces of peaceful demonstrators and shoot
them in cold blood. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, hundreds
of soldiers, riot police and members of the pro-junta paramilitary
organization Union Solidarity and Development Association raided several
monasteries in Rangoon and beat and arrested hundreds of monks, novices
and others.

One of the raided monasteries, Maggin, has become a refuge for HIV/AIDS
patients after the authorities launched a manhunt for those taking care of
them when they took part in the recent demonstrations against the sharp
rises in fuel prices and other commodities. The abbot and four senior
monks, two of them over 80, were arrested, along with four other people
found at the monastery.

The HIV/AIDS patients live in one of two buildings at the monastery. “We
and the novices now feel dejected,” said one. “We have no one to taking
care of us. The novices share their alms with us.”

A novice tries to console him. “Phone Phone [Senior Monks] will be back
tonight.”

The patient is doubtful. “How can we know?”

The novice says: “I think if Phone Phone convince them [the authorities]
that they are innocent they will be released.”

“We believe the monks are innocent,” the patient replies. “But we do not
know how they [authorities] think, and why they arrested the monks.”

This exchange was recounted to The Irrawaddy by telephone on Thursday.

The patient said he awoke at midnight to the sound of whistling and
movement outside. He went to the window and saw many uniformed soldiers in
the monastery compound, carrying guns and batons.

The soldiers walked through the monastery in their combat boots, kicking
novices awake. They poked the abbot awake with a baton.

The soldiers then entered the building housing the HIV/AIDS patients. The
patients were at first mishandled but were then released after showing
documents confirming they were receiving treatment.

“None of us dared to speak out,” the patient said.

“They looked as if they would kill anyone who spoke out. I was afraid and
didn’t dare to move.  I am also very afraid of them and dare not to move.
They looked evil and ready to kill.”

____________________________________

September 27, The Nation
Burmese soldiers raid monastery and beat monks

About 100 monks and laymen were arrested last night following a brutal
attack by the military at Ngway Kyar Yan Monastery in South Okkalapa
township in Rangoon, Burma.

"Many spots of blood could still be seen in the morning in the monastery
compound and nearby," one witness said. "It's very terrible. I can't
believe what's happening in this world."

Eyewitnesses said three trucks filled with soldiers arrived at the
monastery at about 12:15am on September 27. When the monks refused the
soldiers' demand to open the gate, a fight broke out in which both sides
hurled bricks at each other for about 20 minutes.

The soldiers eventually crashed through the gate with one of the trucks
and used bamboo sticks to beat everyone in the monastery, including monks,
laymen, women and children, some of whom were related to or were under the
care of the head abbot, or sayadaw.

One witness said the soldiers shouted "harsh, abusive words" at the monks
while they were beating them. One monk who had tried to warn the monastery
of the soldiers' approach was beaten unconscious as he lay on the ground.

"The army soldiers beat the monks violently. They ordered them to sit down
and then they kicked the monks' heads with their boots. There was blood
stain everywhere in the monastry," one of the members of the student
movement told The Nation.

Another witness said the soldiers were led by a two-star general who beat
some of the soldiers who were reluctant to harm the monks.

The attack lasted about 90 minutes, ending when about 60 monks and 40
laymen were tossed into waiting trucks and driven to an unknown
destination.

Broken glass and monks' robes could be seen scattered on the ground  after
the soldiers departed." Cassette players, radios, money that had been
donated, everything they could take," one witness said.

Among those arrested were the second chief of the monastery, Sayadaw U
Uttama, and another senior sayadaw, U Dhammadainna.

However, the head sayadaw, who is a member of the State Sangamahanayaka
Committee, was meditating in a hidden location in the  monastery at the
time of the assault and escaped arrest, as did a number of monks who were
able to flee the soldiers.

People in the neighbourhood around the monastery gathered in the compound
at dawn, many of them breaking into tears when they saw the  devastation
the military had left behind.

"It's impossible to believe that the government would brutalise the holy
monks who represent our religion in this way," one bystander said.

Unconfirmed reports also circulated that soldiers had also raided
monasteries around Moe Gound Pagoda in Rangoon.

Both incidents raised the ire of monks throughout the city. "The
government is not doing this for stability. This is sacrilege  directed at
the religion we believe in," one Buddhist said.

____________________________________

September 27, Irrawaddy
Crackdown troops from division 77, says researcher - Saw Yan Naing

The security forces which are cracking down on protesters in Rangoon are
soldiers from Light Infantry Division 77, according to Htay Aung, an
exiled researcher on military affairs for the Network for Democracy and
Development.

He told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the security forces responsible for
the current violence in Rangoon were from Light Battalion 101 and 105,
both under LID 77, plus several riot police. LID 77 is based in Pegu
Division in lower Burma.

On this the second day of the military crackdown, the security forces
fired into a crowd of more than 100,000 protesters, including Buddhist
monks, near Sule Pagoda in Rangoon. They also fired teargas, according to
witnesses in the area.

One witness in Rangoon who was involved in the demonstration said that ten
protesters were hit by bullets.

He said that protesters broke up and ran in different directions at about
4 p.m. when security forces blocked the demonstration near Sule Pagoda and
began firing into the crowd.

“When we tried to turn back, three army trucks full of soldiers came from
behind us and fired into crowd. Some people climbed on buildings, others
jumped into alleyways and ran away.” he said in an interview with The
Irrawaddy. He added that several people were shot, but he couldn’t confirm
the number of dead or wounded.

Meanwhile, eleven trucks of soldiers from the Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army—an ethnic army that has declared a ceasefire with the junta—were
summoned by the Burmese authorities on Tuesday from Myawaddy, according to
an anonymous source close to the group, adding that they would probably be
used in the campaign of violence in Rangoon.

The source said, “DKBA Battalion 907 left in eleven trunks on Tuesday
night, accompanied by their two senior leaders, Lt Col Mort Tho and Col Ba
Thein.”

He added that the DKBA leaders had been summoned to the Moulmein house of
Brig Gen Thet Naing Win, Commander of Southeast Command of the State Peace
and Development Council.

A Karen news agency, Kwekalu reported that about 400 DKBA soldiers set off
quietly for Moulmein in Mon State and Pa-an in Karen State on Tuesday
night.

Mahn Sha, General Secretary of the Karen National Union, supported the
claims, saying that transportation of the DKBA troops was arranged by Col
Myat Htun Oo from Military Affairs Security in Mae Sot.

____________________________________

September 27, www.govtech.com
Internet, mobile phone lines cut in attempt to hide Burma's peril - Gina
M. Scott

Most of Burma's (Myanmar) mobile phone lines have been cut and the
Internet network has been drastically reduced since the military junta
cracked down on peaceful protesters this week. Charges by police and
troops on demonstrators in Rangoon, especially near the Shwedagon pagoda,
have left several dead, while dozens of people have been arrested and
injured. Security forces opened fire on demonstrators near the Tarder
Hotel in the centre of Rangoon Thursday.

As the security forces step up their crackdown by firing on crowds and
arresting hundreds of monks and pro-democracy activists, communications
continue to be severely disrupted by the authorities.

Internet communication has been slowed right down while more mobile phones
have been disconnected. Many blogs maintained by Burmese citizens have
been made inaccessible by the authorities. Despite these restrictions,
pictures and reports continue to get out of the country thanks to the
foreign journalists present there and to Burmese journalists.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association are outraged by
the measures adopted by the military junta to prevent journalists and
activists covering the on-going crackdown.

"The generals have not hesitated to use force to repress peaceful
demonstrations widely reported in the international press," the two
organizations said. "Knowing it is protected by China and the
international community's impotence, the junta has cut the country off
from the rest of the world in order to better crush the nascent saffron
revolution. We appeal to the international press to step up its coverage
by trying to get journalists into the country so that this dramatic
situation is not played out behind closed doors."

At 3 p.m. local time Wednesday, the military authorities disconnected most
of the country's mobile phone lines, preventing journalists and
demonstrators from reporting on the crackdown launched by the security
forces in the heart of Rangoon. Several journalists have been injured
today, including Than Lwin Zaung Htet of the magazine The Voice.

The authorities have closed Internet cafes in Rangoon while the
government-controlled Internet Service Provider, Bagan Cyber, reduced
Internet traffic speed. It is getting harder and harder to send or receive
photos and videos sent from Burma. Dozens of foreign journalists have been
refused tourist visas by the Burmese embassy in Bangkok.

Burmese blogs, Web sites and Internet cafes have been closed for the past
few days, while it is becoming increasingly difficult to call Burmese
mobile phones from abroad, especially to Ba Maw, Mandalay and Myitkyina.
Khin Mar Lar, the wife of journalist and former political prisoner Nyein
Thit, was arrested at her Rangoon home yesterday when police looking for
her husband with the intention of arresting him.

A group of journalists and intellectuals, the Burma Literary Association,
launched an appeal on 24 September for the release of political prisoners
and for national reconciliation. Despite the threats from military
censors, they added their voice to the protest movement by Buddhist monks.
Created on September 20th, this organization recalls a similar one set up
during the 1988 protests. One of its initiators, journalist U Win Tin, has
been imprisoned since July 1989.

"We know this will be a difficult battle, but the brutal dictatorship's
power has been challenged by another power, the power of love, and it is
this power that will win the day," said Reporters Without Borders and the
Burma Media Association.

The military junta imposed a curfew on Rangoon and Mandalay on Monday and
banned gatherings of more than five people.

http://www.govtech.com/gt/print_article.php?id=149323
____________________________________

September 27, Khonumthung News
Burmese police pick up two prominent Chin politicians

Burmese police in a pre-dawn raid arrested two prominent Chin politicians
Pu Cin Sian Thang and Pu Thawng Kho Thang along with others belonging to
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party
(NLD).

"Seven people led by police officers Yan Naing and Khin Maung Win from
Rangoon came to our house at around 4:30 a.m. They searched the rooms for
documents," said a member of Cin Sian Thang's family.

 "They said they would like to call him (Cin Sian Thang) for a while for
questioning but took him to a vehicle standing on the street at around
5:30 a.m." they added.

The police confiscated documents in Cin Sian Thang's room and took him to
the 'Aungtarpay' interrogation centre in Kyaikkasan, Rangoon.

"So far we have not heard of them, though they said it was for a while,"
said Cin Sian Thang's family.

Cin Sian Thang's family found some politicians including a member of the
United Nationalities League for Democracy (UNLD) Pu Thawng Kho Thang, NLD
members U Hla Pye and others sitting on a truck and waiting for Cin Sian
Thang.

CRPP (Committee Representing People's Parliament) member Pu Cin Sian Thang
is chairman of Zomi National Congress and also an elected Member of
Parliament in the 1990 general elections.

____________________________________

September 27, Narinjara News
Army reinforces troops in Akyab with rural battalions

Akyab:  Despite the military authority's ban on assembly of more than five
people, a demonstration with an estimated 50,000 participants ended
peacefully in Akyab. The authorities did not intervene.

However, a number of soldiers were deployed at seven key places in Akyab,
including government buildings, Lawkanada temple, and Akyi Tong Kong
temple, an eyewitness said.

Over 100 soldiers have been deployed at the Lawkanada temple since early
morning of September 24. Other soldiers were deployed in six other key
locations yesterday morning.

A monk confirmed that he saw five army trucks loaded with soldiers driving
through the downtown area and crossing in front of the monastery at noon
yesterday.

The authorities are deploying them at important locations to crack down on
demonstrators.

On Wednesday, over 100 soldiers from LIB 538 based in Rathidaung, 20 miles
north of Akyab, were brought to Akyab as reinforcements.

The army said three Buthidaung based battalions, including LIB 552 and LIB
564, are now preparing to leave their bases for Akyab, a source said.

A senior politician from Akyab said the army may crack down on
demonstrations in Akyab after placing forces in position.

Many townspeople are anxious about the recent deployments as they fear the
army authorities are preparing to crack down on the current demonstrations
in Akyab.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

September 27, United Press International
Analysis: Gas, oil get Myanmar off hook - Siobhan Devine

Despite international condemnation of the Myanmarese government,
competition for oil and gas will likely limit pressure on it from China
and others in the region.

"A humanitarian catastrophe might shift Chinese behavior, but right now
Beijing probably believes that access to Burma's energy potential and its
strategic location still outweigh the political costs," said Roberto M.
Herrera-Lim, an Asia analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

This week’s protests against Myanmar's ruling junta, which are being
called the most strident in 20 years, have littered international
newspapers and shed new light on Myanmar's problem with human rights.
Given its political and economic ties with Myanmar, China is widely
considered the most capable, though perhaps not the most willing, to force
reforms from the junta.

“Regionally, the consensus is that China is No. 1. China is the one that
can move Burmese behavior,” said Herrera-Lim.

In January, however, China disappointed many by vetoing a U.N. Security
Council resolution that criticized Myanmar’s human-rights record.

“People are focusing their attention not just on Burma but on China, and
seeing China as Burma’s enabler,” said William A. Callahan, a fellow at
the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

China’s support of the former Burma, as well as its silence on the
protests, is often attributed to its neighbor’s oil and natural gas
reserves.

“China needs to diversify its sources of petrochemicals and Burma is one
source,” Callahan said.

According to 2006 figures from the Energy Information Administration, the
data arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, Myanmar has approximately 150
million barrels of crude oil reserves, while its natural gas reserves are
between 10 trillion cubic feet and 13 tcf. Although modest by the
standards of Iran and Russia, Myanmar's natural gas reserves place it in
league with countries such as Brazil and Syria. And more importantly its
location provides it a captive market in China, India and South Korea.

Foreign direct investment in Myanmar's oil and natural gas sectors totaled
$69 million between 2005 and 2006, according to the U.S. State Department.

Natural gas accounted for approximately 30 percent of its total exports in
the same period, and the State Department expects such exports to increase
when production begins at the Shwe and Shwephyu fields.

The race between China and India to buy those exports has already begun,
giving Myanmar the upper hand.

“Burma hasn’t made a decision yet whether to sell the gas to China or
India, and it’s trying to get them both to bid up the price,” said
Herrera-Lim. If China criticizes the regime and then “the situation
stabilizes, then suddenly it’s the Indians that get (the gas) or the South
Koreans,” he said.

As such, China is likely to reserve its criticism of the junta. India’s
leverage is similarly restrained.

China’s willingness to do business with countries considered "rogue" by
the West is often attributed to its sense of being a latecomer to the
energy market.

“The U.S. and Europe already have oil. ... China is a late entrant into
the oil market,” said ZhongXiang Zhang, senior fellow at the East-West
Center in Honolulu. “It’s very difficult for China to get access to good
resources. There are only a few places where China, India can come.”

Moreover, he said, “China ... (doesn't) interfere with a country where
they have business.”

China is by no means alone in its non-interference.

____________________________________

September 27, Agence France Presse
France not demanding Total pullout from Myanmar: minister

France has not asked the energy giant Total to withdraw from Myanmar, its
human rights minister said Thursday, after President Nicolas Sarkozy urged
the group to freeze investments in the country.

Asked about a halt to Total's gas exploration activities in the country,
French junior minister for human rights Rama Yade told French radio RTL:
"That is not what has been discussed for now. We are proceeding step by
step."

Sarkozy on Wednesday urged French businesses including Total to freeze
investments in Myanmar, as he called for a swift adoption of UN sanctions
over the junta's crackdown on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks.

He said "France calls on all its private companies, such as Total, to
exercise the greatest restraint concerning investments in Myanmar and asks
that they do not make any new ones."

But Yade played down the impact of the French measures, warning they would
"not have a decisive impact" since Paris was not a major economic partner
for Myanmar.

"Imagine that Total pull out of Burma, what would that change?" she asked,
calling instead for the country's regional ally Beijing to "harden its
position towards the junta".

China "has started to evolve on Sudan, mindful of the Beijing Olympic
games. There is no reason to think it will not do the same concerning
Burma," she said.

Total has been accused of condoning abusive labour practices in
junta-ruled Myanmar, where it operates a vast gas field in the south of
the country to supply power plants in neighbouring Thailand.

The group, which says it employs some 270 people in the country, issued a
statement Thursday saying it has made no new investments in Myanmar for
the past decade, and had no current investment plans.

____________________________________
ASEAN

September 27, Irrawaddy
Asean countries voice concern over Burma's crackdown - Sai Silp

Asean countries expressed dire concerns about the Burmese military
government's violent crack down on pro-democracy demonstrations this week.

Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on Thursday,
saying, “Singapore welcomes the decision of UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon to send Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Burma. We fully support
any initiative by the UN which would help defuse the situation.”

The ministry urged Burma authorities to admit Gambari into the country and
grant him full access to all political leaders in Burma.

The statement noted that the situation in Burma affects all Asean countries.

On Wednesday, Thai interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanond said Thailand
will work with other countries to seek a resolution to the violence.

At least five monks were killed by government security forces on Wednesday
and scores of monks and civilians were beaten and arrested. On Thursday
afternoon, security forces fired into a large crowd near the center of
Rangoon, reportedly injuring around 10 people.

“Thailand does not have the power or the resources to solve Burma's
problems, and we must work together with countries including China and
India,” Surayud said while he was in New York to attend in UN General
Assembly session.

He said he hoped the situation would not require Thai citizens to be
evacuated from Burma or effect security or the refugee situation along the
Thailand-Burma border area.

Gen Bunrod Somtat, Thailand’s Minister of Defense, has postponed a
scheduled visit to Burma until the situation returns to normal.

On Thursday morning, a group of Burmese and Thai students demonstrated in
front of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok, urging China and India to stop
supporting the Burmese government.

Meanwhile, 15 Buddhists and human rights organizations in Thailand have
submitted a letter to the Sangha in Thailand urging them to ask the
Burmese government to solve their problems peacefully.

“Thailand and Burma believe in Buddhism so we urge the Thai Sangha to send
good wishes to find a resolution with peace and to prevent bloodshed,”
said Rotsana Tositrakul, a representative from the group.

On Wednesday, The Buddhists and Khmer Society Network in Cambodia,
individual Buddhist and social activists and other Buddhists released a
statement in solidarity with the Buddhist peace movement in Burma.

“A violent action is not sustainable. Importantly, as Buddha said, nothing
is permanent, even the power someone holds. So, start now to work for a
peace reconciliation before it is too late,” the statement said.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

September 27, Wall Street Journal Online
Myanmar tests big neighbor

Clashes between protesters and security forces in Myanmar pose a serious
challenge for China, which has long backed the country's unpopular
military rulers and is pushing the junta to negotiate with its opponents.

Beijing is eager to avert instability in its neighbor to the south, which
could jeopardize China's expanding economic and strategic interests in the
country.

China also fears that its close ties to Myanmar could become a blot on its
international image ahead of next year's Olympics in Beijing.

But despite calls from China, the U.S. and other nations for restraint,
Myanmar's military leaders yesterday sharply stepped up a crackdown on
protest demonstrations that have been gaining momentum for more than a
week.

In Yangon, Myanmar's largest city and its former capital, soldiers and
riot police fired bullets over the heads of large crowds of demonstrators
-- including thousands of Buddhist monks -- who had defied a government
ban on public assembly, according to wire-service reports.

Witnesses told reporters that riot police used tear gas and batons in an
effort to disperse marchers. They said police severely beat some
protesters and carted some away in trucks. In the northern city of
Mandalay, troops were deployed to keep monks from leaving their
monasteries, the reports said.

The Associated Press reported that exiled Myanmar journalists and
activists in Thailand said as many as five people, including monks, were
shot to death by security forces. The reports about the deaths couldn't be
independently confirmed, but late last night, the Myanmar government
acknowledged one civilian was killed and three wounded in the suppression
of the protests. Myanmar, with a population of about 57 million, was known
as Burma before the current government changed its name.

Red Cross workers treated an injured monk on Wednesday in Yangon, Myanmar,
after security forces tear-gassed protesters.

The escalating protests were triggered by the government's abrupt decision
to sharply cut fuel subsidies last month, increasing economic hardships in
one of Asia's poorest countries.

Although Myanmar is rich in timber, mineral and agricultural resources,
decades of mismanagement by authoritarian governments have left the
economy in tatters, with raging inflation and a currency that is virtually
worthless abroad.

An official in the spokesman's office of China's foreign ministry
yesterday evening said Beijing "had taken note of recent developments" in
Myanmar but said the government had no immediate reaction to the violence
and arrests of protest leaders.

Others were more outspoken. The United Nations Security Council held an
emergency meeting yesterday on the violent response to demonstrations and
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the junta to exercise "utmost
restraint." The U.S. and the European Union asked the Security Council to
consider sanctions, and India, which is seen to have some sway in Myanmar,
called for political overhaul there.

Following President Bush's announcement of tougher sanctions Tuesday, U.S.
officials said Washington could model its sanctions on those previously
used against North Korea. The Treasury Department is expected to designate
this week a number of Myanmar officials and companies, along with their
business associates -- including banks -- for blacklisting.

Despite calls for restraint from China and others, Myanmar's military is
stepping up a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrators, including
Buddhist monks.

The White House said it is set to increase pressure on Myanmar's fellow
members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean -- such as
Thailand and Singapore -- to cut its ties to the junta.

"I do think Singapore and the rest of Asean need to find a backbone on
this subject," a senior U.S. official working on Southeast Asia said.
"They have been far too kind to this ruling junta."

The international spotlight on the violence in Myanmar will refocus
attention on China's efforts to balance the at-times competing aims of its
foreign policy -- securing access to energy and raw materials to power its
charging economy -- with being viewed as a vital and responsible player in
global politics.

"China is becoming a real status-quo, stakeholder power," said David
Shambaugh, a specialist in Chinese foreign policy at George Washington
University in Washington. "They understand they have to shoulder some of
the burden for global governance and stop being a free rider."

In recent months, Mr. Shambaugh said, China has appeared more "sensitive
to Western criticism" about its close relations with countries such as
Sudan, where the Khartoum government is battling rebels in Darfur, and
Myanmar.

The State Department yesterday said Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill, while in Beijing for talks on North Korea, will press
China to use its leverage with its ally Myanmar to stop the violent
crackdown on protesters.

China, which has long touted a policy of not interfering in the internal
affairs of other states, defends its policy of engagement with states that
have been isolated by the West, saying that friendly relations give it
more influence. Chinese diplomats say they have used quiet diplomacy
instead of sanctions to, for example, encourage Sudan to allow
peacekeepers in Darfur.

In a report last week, China's state-run Xinhua news agency paraphrased a
senior Chinese official telling a special envoy from Myanmar that the
government there should "push forward a democracy process appropriate for
the country." Xinhua also paraphrased the official, State Councilor Tang
Jiaxuan, as saying that Myanmar should "properly handle issues and
actively promote national reconciliation."

Chinese officials have also met repeatedly over many years with members of
opposition groups from Myanmar. Nyo Myint, the Thailand-based head of the
foreign-affairs committee of the National Council of the Union of Burma,
an umbrella democracy group, says that he has visited China for "informal
conversations" with the government at least a dozen times since 2003.

"They want to see Burma remain stable and change gradually, not a
situation like today," Mr. Nyo said in a telephone interview.

China has significant economic interests in Myanmar. According to Chinese
customs data, two-way trade last year totaled $1.46 billion, up from $1.21
billion a year earlier, with China exporting about five times as much as
it imports. According to the Myanmar government's list of approved
investments, China had invested $194 million in the country by the end of
last year.

Zhou Yang and Kersten Zhang in Beijing, Ellen Zhu in Shanghai, Jay Solomon
in Washington and Raphael Pura in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to
this article.

____________________________________

September 27, Irrawaddy
Indian MP criticizes government over Burma policy - Violet Cho

Members of India's parliament have criticized the ruling government for
failing to push Burma's military government on the path to democracy and
national reconciliation.

The Indian government signed a gas contract with Burma's government
earlier this week in the midst of a national uprising that has seen the
junta open fire on monks and civilians, killing at least five monks and
injuring scores of pro-democracy demonstrators.

Dr. Nirmala Deshpande, a member of the upper Indian parliament group, said
the Indian government has not done enough for democracy in Burma.

“They [the government] should have sympathy on the Burmese people and take
the initiative to pressure the military government to release political
prisoners including Aung San Su Kyi,” said Nirmala Deshpande.

Earlier this week. India's Minister of Oil and Gas, Murli S Deora, met
with military regime leaders in the capital of Naypyidaw.

According to the state-own newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, the India
delegation signed a production sharing contract and discussed energy
issues.

Soe Myint, the chief editor of the India-based Burmese newspaper Mizzima,
said it was strange for the Indian government to discuss oil and gas
investments when there were massive protests in Burma sparked by a
doubling of petrol and diesel prices.

"The Indian government is taking this chance to exploit Burmese citizens,"
he said.
The India government issued an official statement on Burma on Wednesday.
"It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully
through dialogue,” the statement said.

Soe Myint said he believed the government issued the statement because of pr

____________________________________

September 27, Reuters
Thai PM urges Myanmar to avoid "harsh measures"

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont urged the military rulers of
neighbouring Myanmar on Wednesday to avoid violence in dealing with the
biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years.

"I'm trying my best to convince the Burmese: 'Don't use the harsh
measures'," he told a gathering at the Asia Society in New York, where he
is attending the U.N. General Assembly.

"At least they should try to avoid the violent action from the government
side," said the retired general, who was named prime minister after last
year's bloodless military coup in Thailand.

"As a Buddhist and as a soldier, I can say that it will be very difficult
for the Burmese government to use violence to crack down on the monks. It
will be against the way of life of the Buddhists," Surayud said, speaking
in English.

Two monks and a civilian were killed in Myanmar, hospital and monastery
sources said, as decades of pent-up frustration at 45 years of unbroken
military rule in the former Burma produced the largest crowds yet during a
month of protests.

Thailand came under military rule a year ago, when then Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed in a coup while attending the U.N. General
Assembly. The country is gearing up for a Dec. 23 general election.

Surayud said he was familiar with some members of the secretive junta that
runs Myanmar, which shares a long border with Thailand.

"I know some of them and I think that they will be very careful in terms
of trying to deal with the political situation," he said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 27, Reuters
Myanmar agrees to receive U.N. envoy

Myanmar's military junta has agreed to receive a United Nations envoy to
discuss the crisis in their country, a U.N. spokeswoman announced on
Thursday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been "informed by the Myanmar foreign
minister that the secretary-general's special envoy will be welcomed by
the Myanmar government," U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. "The
secretary-general is pleased with this cooperation."

The U.N. chief sent veteran diplomat Ibrahim Gambari on his mission after
security forces used force to try to quell the biggest pro-democracy
demonstrations in two decades, led by Buddhist monks. He is now in
Myanmar's eastern neighbor, Thailand.

____________________________________

September 27, Associated Press
Security Council urges restraint by Myanmar government and expresses
concern at its crackdown - Edith M. Lederer

After initial resistance from China, the U.N. Security Council issued a
statement of concern about Myanmar's violent crackdown on Buddhist monks
and urged the military regime to let in a special envoy.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was
expected to leave for the region immediately after briefing the emergency
council meeting Wednesday on the fatal violence.

Council diplomats said China, which has close economic ties to Myanmar,
did not want any document issued after the closed-door session but
relented and agreed to a brief statement, which was read to reporters by
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.

"Members of the council have expressed their concern vis a vis the
situation, and have urged restraint, especially from the government of
Myanmar," the statement said.

The junta's forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in the center
of the country's largest city, Yangon, killing at least one person.
Dissident groups have claimed the casualty count is higher, with as many
as five people killed, including monks.
Ban called on Myanmar's government to exercise its "utmost restraint" and
later met one-on-one with Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win. On his way
to the meeting, a reporter asked about the five reported deaths and Win
replied: "You asked if five people died and we said no."

The council's statement said it "welcomed the decision by the
secretary-general to urgently dispatch his special envoy to the region and
underlines the importance that Mr. Gambari be received by the authorities
of Myanmar as soon as possible."

The United States and the council's European Union members Britain,
France, Italy and Belgium had condemned the attacks and called on the
country's military rulers to stop the violence and open a dialogue with
pro-democracy leaders.

"What's going on in Burma is outrageous," U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said after a luncheon meeting of ministers from the eight
major industrialized nations. "The regime needs to stop using violence
against peaceful people and get to a dialogue so that they can have
reconciliation."

China and Russia contend that the situation in Myanmar is an internal
affair and doesn't threaten international peace and security as required
for Security Council action so getting them to agree to the press
statement was considered a positive step.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters after the meeting that
the most important thing is to see that the Myanmar authorities "restore
stability," and to get Gambari into the country as soon as possible.

"China is a neighbor to Myanmar, so we more than anyone else wish to see
that Myanmar will achieve stability, national reconciliation, and we want
to see them making progress on the road of democratization," he said. "We
hope that the government and people there could just sort out their
differences."

Wang said that he believed sanctions would not be helpful. He added that
"these problems now at this stage (do) not constitute a threat to
international and regional peace and stability."

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin supported the council statement,
adding, "we are concerned about the developments and regret the loss of
life."

In January, China and Russia cast a rare double veto on a U.S.-sponsored
resolution calling on Myanmar's military government to release all
political prisoners, speed up progress toward democracy and stop attacks
against ethnic minorities.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the United States supported the
statement and Gambari's mission. Asked about China's reaction, he said,
"We have called on them to use their influence, and we hope that they
will."

Myanmar's junta took power in 1988 after crushing the democracy movement
led by Aung San Suu Kyi. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu
Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide election
victory. Since then, Suu Kyi has been in and out of detention, kept in
near-solitary confinement at her home.

The current protests began Aug. 19 after the government hiked fuel prices
in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted
dissatisfaction with the repressive military rule that has gripped the
country since 1962. The protests were faltering when Buddhist monks took
the lead last week.

Associated Press Writers Slobodan Lekic, Sarah DiLorenzo and Matthew Lee
contributed to this report from New York.

____________________________________

September 27, Agence France Presse
Global outrage over Myanmar protest crackdown

World governments vowed Wednesday to hold Myanmar's military rulers to
account for a bloody crackdown on mass street protests, as the UN Security
Council expessed concern over the violence and backed the visit of a UN
envoy to the country.

In a joint statement issued in Brussels, the European Union and the United
States said they were "deeply troubled" by reports that the security
forces had fired on demonstrators and arrested monks spearheading the
protests.

The statement called on the Security Council to consider further steps
"including sanctions."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon announced the dispatch of special envoy Ibrahim
Gambari to Myanmar and urged the military junta "to cooperate fully" with
his mission.

But at a two-hour emergency meeting the UN Security Council could agree
only on expressing "concern" over the violence and "strong support" for
Gambari's visit there "as soon as possible."

The G8 grouping of the world's eight most industrialized countries warned
the ruling generals that they would be held accountable for their actions.

"They are deeply troubled by the situation and condemned all forms of
violence against peaceful demonstrators," an aide to German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after a meeting of the group's top
diplomats.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged French businesses including oil
giant Total -- accused over labor rights abuses in Myanmar -- to freeze
investments in the country and called for the swift adoption of UN
sanctions.

"France will not accept the gagging of Myanmar's opposition," Sarkozy said
after meeting the head of Myanmar's self-proclaimed government in exile,
Sein Win, in Paris.

But there were divisions over the effectiveness of punitive measures, with
China refusing to put overt pressure on its neighbor and close ally, and
Australia questioning the impact of any Western sanctions.

On Tuesday, President George W. Bush had announced tougher economic
sanctions on the regime and its "financial backers."

International concern over the situation rose sharply after witnesses and
diplomats in Myanmar's biggest city Yangon said four people were killed
and 100 injured Wednesday as security forces fired on protestors, and used
tear-gas and baton charges to disperse the crowds.

About 200 people were arrested -- half of them Buddhist monks.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stressed major Asian players like
China and India need to bring pressure to bear on Myanmar.

"One can tighten sanctions, why not? But more importantly countries of the
region now can no longer tolerate, as in the past, such a dictatorial
regime," he told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly
session in New York.

In Thursday's issue of the daily Independent, British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown wrote in a commentary that:"I want to tell those within the
regime who order violence against the people: stand down the troops -- the
age of impunity is over."

But Russia, another permanent UN Security Council member, insisted that
the events were an "internal matter" for Myanmar to resolve and it trusted
the junta to use restraint.

Russia and China had vetoed a Security Council resolution in January
urging Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees.

UN human rights chief Louise Arbour said she was "gravely concerned" about
the well being and safety of demonstrators, and rights groups called on
the UN Security Council to impose its own arms embargo and to stop China
and India providing weapons to the junta.

India limited itself to an expression of concern and said it was closely
monitoring the situation.

"It is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully
through dialogue," the foreign ministry in Delhi said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the European Union began drawing up fresh sanctions against the
military regime, 375 members of whom are already banned from entering the
EU.

Experts said any new measures would have to be swiftly followed by
vigorous international diplomacy to press the junta to bow to
unprecedented public demands for freedom.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Western economic
sanctions would have "absolutely no impact" and argued that China was the
only country with any hope of convincing Myanmar's rulers to reform.

"Canada condemns the use of deadly force by the military and police
against the monks and other protesters in Burma (Myanmar) who were
expressing their right to peaceful dissent, and calls on Burma to put an
immediate end to such violence," Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said in a
statement.

____________________________________

September 27, Agence France Presse
US: Myanmar must end violence against demonstrators

The United States demanded Thursday that Myanmar's military rulers end an
"outrageous" and deadly crackdown on anti-government protestors and called
for more global pressure on the junta.

"The Burmese government should not stand in the way of its people's desire
for freedom. They must stop this violence against peaceful protesters
now," said White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

US President George W. Bush was expected to issue a statement later
calling for increased global pressure on Myanmar, while the US Treasury
Department was due to release a list of individuals there targeted by new
US sanctions.

But US officials declined to criticize China and India, Myanmar's giant
neighbors, over braking diplomatic efforts to bring about change there.

"I think it's clear that the president wants increased international
pressure on Burma," spokesman Tony Fratto said, pointing to Bush's
warnings to the junta in his speech this week to the UN General Assembly.

"I also expect the Treasury dept soon to move on their role in imposing
some sanctions with respect to Burma," he said, referring to travel
restrictions and financial sanctions that Bush announced in New York.

"We must see continued stepped up international pressure on Burma," said
Fratto, who called the crackdown on anti-government protests there "an
outrageous situation."

"The world is watching, we also need the world acting and that's why we're
going to continue to work with our partners in the international community
and the other countries on the UN Security Council to continue work to
step up pressure on Burma until they change their practices," he said.

Fratto also declared that the United States would continue to call the
country "Burma" in a show of support for pro-democracy activists there.

"We choose not to use the language of a totalitarian dictatorial regime
that oppresses its people," he said. "And we have freedom of speech here,
maybe they don't."

His comments were in line with the US State Department and the Central
Intelligence Agency, which pointedly note that the 1989 name change never
won approval from the country's legislators.

"The democratically elected but never convened parliament of 1990 does not
recognize the name change, and the democratic opposition continues to use
the name 'Burma.' Due to consistent support for the democratically elected
leaders, the US government likewise uses 'Burma,'" the State Department
website says.

The CIA "World Fact Book" notes that the new name is a derivative of the
Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw.

Earlier, security forces in the country formerly known as Burma swept
through the heart of the capital city Yangon, arresting hundreds of people
and firing warning shots as they intensified a violent crackdown on
anti-government demonstrators.

At least 50,000 people, many of them youths and students, swarmed into
Yangon undeterred by the deaths of at least four protesters, including
three Buddhist monks, the day before, repeatedly defying orders to
disperse.

Reports were sketchy after a chaotic six hours of protests, but witnesses
and diplomats said at least four people were shot, including a Japanese
video journalist who was killed.

It was the 10th straight day that large protests have erupted against the
ruling junta, which caused outrage in this impoverished Southeast Asian
nation by doubling fuel prices on August 15.

____________________________________

September 27, Associated Press
U.S. imposes economic sanctions on Myanmar government officials

The Bush administration announced Thursday that it was imposing economic
sanctions against Myanmar's senior government officials, amid a crackdown
on anti-government protesters there.

In Myanmar, soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of demonstrators
Thursday as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters converged in the
main city.

"The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand
their freedom, and the American people stand in solidarity with these
brave individuals," Mr. Bush said in a statement Thursday. Myanmar is also
known as Burma.

"We feel admiration and compassion for the monks and peaceful protesters
calling for democracy," Mr. Bush said. "Every civilized nation has a
responsibility to stand up for people suffering under a brutal military
regime like the one that has ruled Burma for too long."

The action by the Treasury Department will freeze any assets that 14
senior officials have in U.S. banks or other financial institutions under
U.S. jurisdiction. The order also prohibits any U.S. citizens from doing
business with the designated individuals.

"The president has made it clear that we will not stand by as the regime
tries to silence the voices of the Burmese people through repression and
intimidation," said Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign
Assets Control.

As the Treasury Department announced details of the sanctions, the White
House called on the junta to allow a United Nations special envoy full
access to all relevant parties, including those jailed by the junta and
religious leaders, while he is in Myanmar, beginning Friday.

The U.S. also called on the country's military leaders to open a dialogue
with the protesters and urged China, Myanmar's main economic and political
ally, to use its influence to prevent further bloodshed.

The crackdown has put China in a difficult position. The communist
government has developed close diplomatic ties with Myanmar's government
and is major trading partner and investor. But with the Beijing Olympics
11 months away, China has been fending off criticism that it shelters
unpopular or abusive regimes around the world. (See related article8.)

European Union diplomats agreed on Thursday to considering imposing more
economic sanctions on the military leaders of Myanmar. Any new sanctions
would add to EU diplomatic and economic measures already in place against
Myanmar in response to its lack of political reforms and its poor human
rights record. Sanctions were first imposed in 1996 and include a ban on
travel to Europe for top government officials, an assets freeze and a ban
on arms sales to Myanmar.

Soldiers Fire Shots Into Crowd of Protesters

Witnesses to the violence said that after soldiers fired into a crowd near
a bridge across the Pazundaung River on the east side of downtown Yangon,
five men were arrested and severely beaten by soldiers. Thousands of
protesters ran through the streets after the shots rang out. Bloody
sandals were left in the road. Witnesses said at least one man had been
shot, though the guns didn't appear to be aimed directly at the massive
crowd that had gathered at Sule Pagoda.

Japanese Embassy officials in Yangon were told by Myanmar's Foreign
Ministry that one of the several people found dead following protests
Thursday was believed to be a Japanese national, a Japanese Foreign
Ministry official said on customary condition of anonymity. Embassy
officials headed for a hospital to confirm the death, the ministry
official said.

Protesters shouted at the soldiers, angry about early morning raids by
security forces on Buddhist monasteries. Soldiers reportedly beat up and
arrested more than 100 monks, who have spearheaded the largest challenge
to the junta since a pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed in
1988.

Bloody sandals were left on a street in downtown Yangon Thursday after
soldiers fired into a crowd of anti-government demonstrators.

"Give us freedom, give us freedom!" some demonstrators shouted at the
soldiers, who by mid-afternoon had fanned out across the streets of
Yangon, the country's largest city.

The government said one man was killed in Yangon on Wednesday when police
opened fire during the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations, but
dissidents outside Myanmar reported receiving news of up to eight deaths.
Some reports said the dead included monks, who are widely revered in the
Buddhist nation, and the emergence of such martyr figures could stoke
public anger against the regime and escalate the violence.

Before dawn Thursday, security forces raided several monasteries
considered hotbeds of the pro-democracy movement. A monk at Ngwe Kyar Yan
monastery pointed to bloodstains on the concrete floor and said a number
of monks were beaten and at least 100 of its 150 monks taken away in
vehicles. Shots were fired in the air and tear gas was used against a
crowd of about 1,500 supporters of the monks during the chaotic raid, he
said.

In Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, five army trucks with
soldiers and three fire trucks were seen driving into the Mahamuni Pagoda,
where hundreds of monks were locked inside by security forces. A further
60 soldiers blocked the road to the pagoda from the center of the city.

Led by thousands of monks in maroon robes, protesters have been demanding
more democratic freedoms, the release of political activists and economic
reforms in the impoverished nation. The protests, which began Aug. 19,
were initially sparked by high fuel prices but have been swelled by
pent-up opposition to harsh military rule.

Myanmar's state-run newspaper on Thursday blamed "saboteurs inside and
outside the nation" for causing the protests in Yangon, and said the
demonstrations were much smaller than the foreign media were reporting.
"Saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio
stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been
making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and
civil commotion," the government's New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

Also Thursday, security forces arrested Myint Thein, spokesman for
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, family members said.
An Asian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the Nobel
Peace Prize laureate remained at her Yangon residence, where she has been
held under house arrest for much of the past 18 years. Rumors had
circulated that she had been taken away to Yangon's notorious Insein
prison. The diplomat said the junta had deployed more security forces
around Suu Kyi's house and on the road leading to it, and that more than
100 soldiers were now inside the compound.

____________________________________

September 27, The New York Sun
Storm over Burma could spell Olympic boycott - Nicholas Wapshott

After Burma's military junta yesterday shot dead eight pro-democracy
protesters, including five unarmed monks, a growing chorus of Western
voices is beginning to question whether the Chinese government's failure
to restrain its Burmese client state should result in a boycott of the
Beijing Olympics next summer.

In an unprecedented personal intervention, first lady Laura Bush urged the
Burmese regime to give up power peacefully and allow the elected leader,
Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, to govern the country. "I want to
encourage the generals to start the reconciliation, move aside, and let a
democracy build," Mrs. Bush said yesterday on the Voice of America.

In one of the strongest condemnations of the Burmese junta, Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher, a Republican of California, warned in Congress that unless
the military dictators showed restraint, they would be treated as war
criminals. "If you slaughter the monks and those calling for democracy,
when your regime falls, and it will fall, you will be pursued to every
corner of the globe like the Nazi criminals before you," he said in the
House on Tuesday evening.

After a private briefing from Burma experts in the State Department, Mrs.
Bush let slip that it was thought the Chinese communist leaders may be
pressing their allies in Rangoon to show restraint. "We hear, but it's not
substantiated, that China is urging the regime not to react in a brutal
and violent way against the protesters. I hope that's the case," she said,
before calling on the Chinese government to use all its influence to
prevent a massacre.

There was little evidence, however, that the Burmese dictators were in any
mood to give ground on the ninth day of widespread protests led by
thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks. At least five monks were killed
yesterday, Zin Linn, the information minister for the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma, the country's government in exile in
Washington, told the Associated Press.

Dissatisfaction is growing among American and European lawmakers with the
Chinese leadership, which for decades has financed and armed the Burmese
regime. Burmese exports to China, mainly timber and gems, have soared in
recent months and China has built oil and gas pipelines between the two
countries.

Mr. Rohrabacher firmly laid blame for the violence at China's door. "I
urge all Burmese soldiers, do not kill your own people for the greed and
corruption of those who have sold out your country to the Chinese. You are
not a state of Beijing."

Those already advocating the boycotting of the Beijing Olympics in August
next year because of the Chinese government's indifference toward the
genocide in Darfur and China's poor human rights record, believe the
violence in Burma will add fuel to their arguments.

America and the European Union already have sanctions in place against the
Burmese regime, and China's insistence that Burma should not be subject to
U.N. Security Council pressure only serves to encourage a more direct
approach.

Three weeks ago, President Bush accepted an invitation from the Chinese
government to visit the Olympics with Mrs. Bush. The prospect of the first
lady attending the event in the light of China's inaction seemed
increasingly remote last night.

"I hope that both China and India, who have sway with Than Shwe [the junta
leader] and with the other generals, because of their trade and their
economic partnerships, will 
 speak out and urge the generals to now
really start 
 to reconcile, to build a democracy, to free the political
prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and give their country a chance to
build," she said.

Mrs. Bush was joined by a 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Jody Williams,
who told The New York Sun yesterday: "China is the most important military
and economic backer of the Burmese military dictatorship. Just as it has
been pressured to end its unwavering support for the murderous Sudanese
government, it must be pressured on its unsavory relationship with this
repressive regime.

"There have already been calls for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics — some
going so far as to name them the ‘Genocide Olympics' because of China's
involvement with Khartoum. 
 I think that call should be broadened to
include all of China's direct and indirect violations of human rights.
China cannot be allowed to stand silently on the sidelines as the Burmese
military begins its crackdown on the nonviolent demonstrators.

"Now most definitely is the time to test if the Olympic slogan ‘One World,
One Dream' applies to the people of Burma. Or those of Darfur. Or those of
the Democratic Republic of Congo. Or those of Tibet. Or, in fact, if it
applies to the peoples of China itself."

"The principal criticism of China's role as host of the Olympics is its
violation of the human rights of its own citizens," the ranking Republican
on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican
of Florida, told the Sun. "Beijing's support for repressive regimes in
Burma, Iran, Sudan, and elsewhere only serves to underscore its continuing
denial of basic freedoms to the Chinese people."

Last night, Burma moved to the front of the debate among presidential
candidates. "I strongly condemn the brutal actions" of the Burmese regime.
"The U.S. should work with the international community to bring an end to
these abusive actions violating basic human rights. I applaud the courage
of the Buddhist monks who have risked their lives in pursuit of democracy
and freedom," Senator Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut who is seeking his
party's presidential nomination, told the Sun.

http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=63463&v=9649190911

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 27, United Press International
Burma's Saffron Revolution - Awzar Thi

Among the many inspiring photographs to come from Burma in this past week,
perhaps one of the most compelling was not of rain-soaked monks wading
through flooded Rangoon streets or teenagers and their grandmothers with
hands locked together to form protective chains alongside them, but of a
small assembly in the north of the country.

On Sept. 18, monks in Mogok, upper Burma, gathered together at the
Aungchanthar Monastery to decide whether or not to overturn their alms
bowls: to declare a formal boycott of the country's military regime,
together with the rest of the Buddhist order -- the Sangha --in response
to a brutal attack on a group of their peers early in the month.

The overturning of bowls is not done lightly. It is a last resort that
must be carefully discussed and considered. There are only eight
prescribed circumstances under which it may be invoked: one being that the
offending party has put the lives of monks at risk. It also must be
declared through a formal procedure.

The last time that the Sangha in Burma declared a boycott against the
regime in response to a similar incident in 1990, it was violently
suppressed. Thousands of monks were arrested and hundreds disrobed and
detained. Monasteries were occupied; some were seized. New orders
prohibited unofficial religious groupings, and disciplinary committees
were later established to oversee behavior.

So the significance of declaring a boycott was not lost on the community
in Mogok. In the photo, they sit together in the manner of their
predecessors over two-and-a-half millennia: a line of senior monks faced
by a semicircle of pupils. Their faces are stern. One superior clutches a
piece of paper: perhaps the formal pronouncement of the ban.

During the following days, in Mogok as throughout the country, the Sangha
took to the streets, barefoot and formally garbed, to indicate publicly
that the bowls were turned. The marches took hold quickly, in big towns
and small, in the upper and lower regions. In Rangoon it rained heavily,
but although umbrellas are prohibited under the boycott rules, the monks
walked anyway. In Sittwe, on the western seaboard, a monk was assaulted
and others harassed by government thugs, but they too kept at it.

Initially the monks discouraged ordinary citizens from joining them, in
part to demonstrate that they alone had taken the drastic step, and in
part out of fear for the security of the general public. Some were hostile
to photographers, fearing that they might be government officials. A
blogger posting pictures on his page wrote that not only did he have to
contend with informers and spies but also with the monks themselves.

However, after a few days, it was impossible to keep the crowds away. And
once they were out, they swelled with tremendous speed, from a few
hundred, to a few thousand, to tens of thousands.

Their message also swelled, from the first silent walks of the monks, to
their chanting of verses for loving kindness and protection, and then to
the increasingly vocal and political demands to lower commodity prices,
free political prisoners and open genuine dialogue for national
reconciliation: the last co-opting a government propaganda slogan.

It all became a bit much for the junta, which appears to have been caught
off-guard by the scale and spread of the rallies, and also perhaps by the
intense interest that they have attracted abroad. On the night of Sept. 24
it warned that further protests would not be tolerated, and iterated the
contents of the 1990 directives, that monks "stay away from forming,
joining or supporting any illegal Sangha organization"; that is, any not
under direct government control.

The threats had the opposite effect of what was intended: larger rallies
followed, and monks and ordinary citizens alike said that they were
determined to continue. A group of prominent actors and artists came to
give alms to protesting monks at the Shwedagon Pagoda in the former
capital. Lawyers set up a new union to support calls for political change.

As people were settling down to sleep on Sept. 25, a 60-day nighttime
curfew was announced and further threats issued against continued dissent.
This time they were backed with force. Marchers approaching Shwedagon
Pagoda on Wednesday morning found it locked and surrounded by riot police,
soldiers and assorted heavies. When some refused to back down, bullets and
teargas were fired. Then the police moved in and began assaulting and
shouting obscenities at everyone in range. Hundreds were taken away in
trucks. Unknown numbers were injured, some seriously. At least one monk
may have died.

But it will take much more than that to quell these protests. Even as the
demonstrators in Rangoon were being beaten, thousands more were walking
past army barricades on the streets of Mandalay. And back in the old
capital, others met up at Sule Pagoda in the afternoon and exhorted
non-violence, until they were beaten back.

While the failure of the military to deal with the protestors sooner
remains the subject of conjecture -- which abounds in talk about Burma --
the cause of the rallies themselves are obvious. People have had enough.
As an elderly woman told a group of monks in the ancient city of
Amarapura, "We are sick and tired of being in the hands of these kings,
these bad kings. We are destitute. We are miserable. We are depending upon
you."

The reference to kings in a country that lost its monarchy in 1885 is not
accidental or archaic. It alludes to the preliminary verses that precede
the chanting of certain Buddhist discourses in Burma, including those for
loving kindness and safekeeping, mentioned above. These call for
safekeeping from iniquitous kings, which are counted together with fire,
flood, thieves and ungrateful heirs as one of the five traditional
enemies.

In a sermon, the late renowned Mingun abbot explained that, "When the
ruler regards the citizens as a child of his breast and reigns in
accordance with the code of conduct of a ruler, then he is a parent of the
people. But when he derives various schemes that are ill and persecutes
the people, he belongs to the list of enemies."

The Saffron Revolution, as it has become known, is the expression of
decades upon decades of pent-up frustration at the ineptitude, inequity
and indecency of a national leadership that is an archetypal enemy.
Whatever else happens, it has brought the facade of national unity, peace
and development that the army has worked for almost 20 years to build --
and which its supporters and apologists have tried to sell -- crashing
down. There is only one national unity in Burma: that is, the unity of its
people against its government. There is only one possibility for peace and
development: that the regime ends, one way or the other.

(Awzar Thi is the pen name of a member of the Asian Human Rights
Commission with over 15 years of experience as an advocate of human rights
and the rule of law in Thailand and Burma whose Rule of Lords blog can be
read at: http://ratchasima.net/)

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/human_rights/2007/09/27/commentary_burmas_saffron_revolution/
____________________________________

September 27, Asia Times
The man behind the Myanmar madness - Richard Ehrlich and Shawn W Crispin

Myanmar's monk-led struggle for political change has made global
headlines, but the dictator who rules the country with an iron fist,
General Than Shwe, 74, is still obscure, often grimly hidden behind dark
sunglasses and a military uniform decorated with medals. He is widely
viewed, both at home and overseas, as the major stumbling block to
national reconciliation and the restoration of democracy.

The senior general is occasionally seen in local media saluting Myanmar's
powerful armed forces at parades and other state

ceremonies, his jowls framing a plump, sullen face. He is also widely
known to suffer from health problems, for which he frequently seeks
medical care in Singapore, and some analysts wonder whether he still has
the mental facilities and political judgment to manage the current crisis
roiling his regime.

Rumors circulating in the Thailand-based Burmese-exile community contend
that the military leader recently sent his close family members to Bangkok
in case the protests spiral out of control. As the hardline junta's top
general, Than Shwe would certainly have reason to fear if the growing
protest movement eventually led to forced regime change.

Rights groups in Thailand have studiously chronicled the military regime's
abuses, including well-documented allegations of forced labor, torture,
systematic rape and the ill-treatment of many of the country's estimated
1,200 political prisoners. For many of those charges, rights groups
contend, Than Shwe could be held directly responsible in an eventual
international tribunal.

The introverted and superstitious leader is also known to be the driving
force behind the junta's bizarre decision to move the national capital 400
kilometers north from Yangon to Naypyidaw in 2005. Some political analysts
have speculated that the new capital was built toward the aim of
re-establishing the country's long-abolished monarchy as part of a broader
political transition where Than Shwe would assume a newly established
throne.

Than Shwe, a high-school dropout, does not have particularly aristocratic
roots, however. He was born in 1933, when Myanmar, then known as Burma,
was still under British colonial rule. Those formative years under foreign
rule may explain his regime's still-frequent warnings that Britain and the
United States support subversive elements aimed at stirring unrest inside
Myanmar toward the alleged aim of overthrowing the military government and
securing privileged access to the country's rich bounty of natural
resources, including large unexploited deposits of oil and gas.

Yet his regime's own relentless truth-twisting, severe censorship, endless
sloganeering, and rampant jingoism are often referred to as Orwellian and
have earned Myanmar critical international rebukes, including frequently
from the United Nations. Than Shwe has the credentials for national
thought control, based on his work dating back to the 1950s in the army's
Psychological Operations Department, when he was involved in churning out
nationalistic propaganda.

Later, his well-established shoot-to-kill instincts, particularly in
counterinsurgency campaigns against minority ethnic-Karen guerrillas in
the country's eastern regions, earned him a promotion to captain in 1960.
He quickly ingratiated himself to the military's top brass by helping
General Ne Win seize power in a 1962 military coup, ending the country's
short post-independence experiment with democracy.

Than Shwe steadily climbed the ranks, at crucial junctures favoring
bullets over ballots.

The current uprising led by Buddhist monks, pro-democracy activists and a
growing number of ordinary people echoes a similar, failed popular
insurrection in 1988, which Than Shwe and other military leaders crushed
after city streets swelled with protesters.

An estimated 3,000 people perished in that idealistic attempt to topple
the regime and restore democracy. Many people now fear an equally bloody
confrontation could erupt amid the current clashes, and there have been
reports that Than Shwe favors a heavy-handed response over possible
negotiations.

During the military's internal squabbling after 1988, Ne Win was ousted in
a coup and Than Shwe rose to the new hardline military regime's top spot
in 1992. Ne Win died under house arrest in 2002.

It remains to be seen whether another ambitious soldier may use the
current chaos as pretext to eclipse the ailing Than Shwe and seize power
for a new military faction. Than Shwe's all-encompassing official titles
include commander-in-chief of the military and chairman of the junta's
ruling body, which he helped re-brand as the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) from its harsher-sounding earlier incarnation as the State
Law and Order Restoration Council.

Last year his government suffered a rare paparazzi-style scandal, when he
hosted an unusually lavish wedding for his daughter. A 10-minute video
clip, filmed at the wedding in the old capital Yangon, surfaced on the
Internet purporting to show the bride, Thandar Shwe, swathed in sumptuous
jewels - revealing the utter disparity in wealth between the military
elite and the impoverished general population.

The champagne, five-star comforts and other opulence became a sore point
among exile-based dissidents and the butt of jokes mocking Than Shwe and
the junta's insistence that his military regime is not corrupt. This week,
international corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked
Myanmar, along with Somalia, as the most corrupt country in the world in
the group's 180-country index for 2007.

Perhaps because of that record, Than Shwe has been the isolationist
counter-force to moderates in the military leadership who have favored
more engagement with the outside world and perhaps a more conciliatory
approach to the political opposition. Than Shwe broke off the United
Nations-supported secret dialogue with the political opposition in 2003
and he is known to harbor a personal grudge toward National League for
Democracy and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, which has
hampered national-reconciliation initiatives.

He reportedly reluctantly signed off on then-SPDC secretary No 1 Khin
Nyunt's drive to have Myanmar elevated into the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997. However, membership failed to deliver the
immediate economic gains the SPDC first envisaged, because of the regional
financial crisis, and has more recently opened his government to more
criticism of the SPDC's abysmal rights record and more neighborly pressure
to implement democratic reforms. Khin Nyunt was removed in an internal
2004 purge and there are now indications Than Shwe is considering
withdrawing Myanmar from the regional grouping.

Reporters Without Borders, a press-freedom group based in France, recently
described Than Shwe as a "notoriously paranoid general" who keeps himself
virtually mummified from his own countrymen in the new capital, Naypyidaw,
which his government built at great expense and moved to in late 2005.
News reports indicate that the reclusive general seldom leaves his
personal villa and rarely personally addresses the SPDC leadership.

Than Shwe "makes very few public appearances, and most Burmese have never
heard him speak", the press-freedom group said in a statement. "His
militaristic speeches, harshly attacking the pro-democracy opposition, are
read for him on the government radio and TV, and are given prominence by
all government media."
However, it's likely the local media would revise the tone and substance
of their reports about the aging dictator should he happen to be
overthrown by the popular movement now testing his hold on political
power.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco,
California. Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

September 27, Asian Human Rights Commission
ASIA: Protestors across Asia demand action on Burma; more rallies planned

Protests demanding global action over the crackdown on peaceful protestors
in Burma were held in Hong Kong, Korea and Thailand on Thursday, and in
the Philippines on Wednesday.

In Hong Kong, around 30 demonstrators squeezed into the lobby of the
Burmese consulate, which was locked and in darkness.

The protestors were led by two members of Hong Kong's legislative council,
Emily Lau and Albert Ho.

"People in Burma have struggled for democracy for many decades and they
have been brutally crushed by dictators," Ho, the chairperson of the
Democratic Party, said.

"We should support the monks and people walking in the streets and their
demands for democracy," he said.

John Clancey, chairperson of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), was
also present.

"We support the Burmese people and especially the monks who are leading
them with vision of a democratic future," Clancey said.

"We call for the democratically-elected government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
to be allowed to take its rightful place and represent the interests of
the people rather than the selfish needs of a few," he said.?

Four television channels and other journalists recorded the rally. The
protests in Burma have received constant coverage throughout the city for
the last three days.

In Korea, around 60 persons gathered outside the embassy in Seoul.

In a statement, 56 human rights groups there said that the military regime
must stop violently reacting to the protestors.

"We accuse the Korean government of turning its face away from the demands
of democracy of the people in Burma and only pursuing economic advantages
through trade with the military regime," the statement read.

The groups urged the Korean government to establish a clear policy in
favour of people's demands for democratization in Burma.

Demonstrations were also held on Thursday at missions in Bangkok and Delhi.

Buddhist monks in Thailand, Korea and Sri Lanka have also expressed
outrage and have demanded that their governments act to prevent carnage in
Burma.

On Wednesday, about 50 people gathered in front of the embassy in Manila
to show support for the struggle in Burma.

Carrying a banner bearing the slogan "DIALOGUE OR REGIME CHANGE!" members
of the Free Burma Coalition (Philippines) demanded that the military junta
sit down in genuine dialogue with the people of Burma to address basic
demands and take actions for democratic reforms.

"The military junta must give in to the people's demands of dialogue,
release of all political prisoners, and moves for democratization and
national reconciliation," the spokesperson said.?

The participants appealed to the junta not to use violence.

"We have experienced living under a military dictatorship, fought hard and
won. We believe the Burmese populace, with their actions led by the
venerable Buddhist monks, will prevail in their struggle for genuine
democracy and national reconciliation," the spokesperson added.

A die-in (people lying on the ground while shouting slogans) was briefly
staged at the main steps leading to the embassy.

On Thursday morning the Philippines senate joined calls worldwide for the
UN Security Council to act more decisively on Burma.

Pickets are scheduled at the embassy in the Philippines on September 28,
October 1, 2 and 3. Public forums are also planned.

The AHRC has organised a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong for Friday night.
Details follow.

In Bangkok and Seoul also candlelight vigils will be held on Friday and
Saturday nights respectively. A demonstration will be held at the Burma
embassy in Bangkok again on Friday.

On Saturday, there will be a march in Hong Kong to the Liaison Office of
the Central People's Government in Hong Kong where a petition will be
presented to the president of China, calling for the Beijing government to
play a positive role in stopping the violence and solving political
problems in Burma. Details again follow.

For all updates on events in Burma and regional solidarity actions please
visit the AHRC Burma Protests page:
http://campaigns.ahrchk.net/burmaprotests/

For photographs of the protests in Hong Kong, Seoul and Manila, visit:
http://ratchasima.net/saffron-revolution/

INVITATION TO CANDLELIGHT VIGIL IN SUPPORT OF THE STRUGGLE OF BURMA'S
PEOPLE FOR DEMOCRACY

In response to the recent people’s movement for democracy in Burma and the
military’s repressive crackdown, a group of local and regional
non-governmental organizations and religious groups will hold a
candlelight vigil beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Friday Sept. 28 in Charter
Garden in Central to arouse public concern on the issue and express
support to the Burmese people.
Time: 7:30 p.m. ?10:30 p.m.
Date: 28 September 2007
Place: Chater Garden, Central
All are welcome!

Any groups which would like to be a co-organizer of the candlelight vigil
and make a speech, please contact us as soon as possible before noon on
Friday.
Contact persons: Wong Kai Shing (94368401) and Bruce Van Voorhis
(94923064) of the Asian Human Rights Commission

Co-organizing groups:
Amnesty International Hong Kong Section
Asian Human Rights Commission
Asia Monitor Resource Centre
Asian Student Association
Association for the Advancement of Feminism
Christians for Hong Kong Society
Hong Kong Christian Institute
Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese
Student Christian Movement of Hong Kong
World Student Christian Movement Asia Pacific

SUPPORT DEMOCRACY & JUSTICE IN MYANMAR PETITION

Dear head of the organization,

Recently, tens of thousands of citizens of Myanmar joined the peaceful
protests led by monks but they were suppressed by the military regime
through bloodshed. As China has great influence on the military regime in
Myanmar, a group of Hong Kong people who are concerned about the people
and democratic movement in Myanmar thus launched this petition. We urge
the Chinese government to compel the military regime in Myanmar to stop
using force against protesters and to start an inclusive and
representative national reconciliation process.

If you are interested in signing the petition, please email to
hk.support.burma.democracy at gmail.com. We will render the signatures to the
Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in HKSAR. Details are as
follows:

Date: 29 September 2007 (the coming Saturday)
Time: 3:00pm
Venue: Gather at the Western Police Station, and then march to the Liaison
Office of the Central People's Government in HKSAR

We hope you will join the march. Please spread this message to your
members and friends. For enquiries, please email:
hk.support.burma.democracy at gmail.com

Petition Statement:

To: Mr. Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China

We are writing to draw your attention to the bloodshed brought by the
military regime of Myanmar (Burma).

Currently peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks were supported by
hundreds of thousands of civilians in Myanmar. It is reported that from
the very beginning the people of Myanmar who joined the demonstrations are
well aware of the fact that they can be jailed, tortured and even have
risked their lives. Thus, the risky yet growing demonstrations prove that
people of Myanmar are no longer able to bear skyrocketing costs of living
and deteriorating living conditions. It has been reported that the
government has arrested more than three hundred demonstrators, killed at
least eight and one hundred were injured, but the government has not
responded to the peoples' demands yet.

We, therefore, seek your help, Mr President, to persuade the government of
Myanmar to stop all the violent acts immediately, to release all the
detained political prisoners and the people arrested, to find the
solutions together without violence and to improve the livelihood of
people of Myanmar in order to reinstall national reconciliation.

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues
in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

____________________________________
STATEMENT

Timor-Leste NGOs in Solidarity of Peaceful Demonstrations Led by Buddhist
Monks in Burma – Urging Government to Enter into Dialogue

We, representatives of Timor-Leste Human Rights NGOs express our deepest
solidarity in the spirit of human rights with the peaceful and holy
movement initiated by Buddhist Monks and joined by many Burmese citizens,
who have been holding peaceful demonstrations exercising their right to
freedom of opinion and expression for several days now in different places
in the country.

We are very concerned about media reports that the Government has now used
force in response to the demonstrations, that demonstrators have been
beaten and that two persons might have been killed. We strongly condemn
this brutal crackdown to stop this peaceful demonstration and urge the
Government to enter into dialogue with its population, and to allow the UN
Special Envoy immediate and free access to the country.

We support statements by the UN as well as the international community
including the Timor-Leste Government strongly condemning the violence in
Burma. We appeal to ASEAN and the Chinese Government, to intervene in
whatever manner possible, to urge the Burmese government to show utmost
restraint and avoid the recurrence of the pain and suffering resulting
from its actions in 1988, now almost 20 years ago. We call on ASEAN and
all its members, in the true spirit of being an association of nations, to
act immediately and not to consider the recent development in Burma as
Burma´s internal matter only.

The current events in Burma remind us, Timorese, starkly of the struggle
for human rights we went through in our recent history. We never forget
the international solidarity shown in the past around the world for the
plight of the Timorese. We know that the use of violence and oppression
never leads to genuine lasting stability and peace. The voices of the
Burmese people urgently need to be heard. We therefore appeal to the
Burmese government to immediately release the leader of the National
League for Democracy, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and engage in talks with a view
to ultimately finding a long-term solution to the important issues Burma
is facing today, and that is just for all its people.

Timor-Leste, 27 September 2007

For release and for further information
Contact: Joao Pequinho (Hp. (+670) 724 2099)

____________________________________

September 26, Christian Solidarity Worldwide
CSW condemns crackdown on Burma protests

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) today condemned the crackdown against
protestors in Burma and called on the international community to take
urgent action to bring change to Burma.

CSW also encouraged Christians around the world to pray for Burma and
urged leaders of international denominations to speak out.

Earlier today Burma’s military regime began attacking and arresting
Buddhist monks and civilians following continuing demonstrations in
Rangoon and other cities. Despite the crack down, several thousand
demonstrators, led by Buddhist monks, continued to march. The police have
used batons and tear gas, and fired warning shots into the air. Some monks
and nuns have been seriously injured. Last night at least 20 prominent
dissidents were arrested. Over 200 activists have previously been detained
in relation to the protests. There are reports that telephone lines have
been cut.

On Monday CSW released a report of its visit to the India-Burma border.
CSW representatives were accompanied on this visit by two British
Parliamentarians, John Bercow MP and Baroness Caroline Cox.

Benedict Rogers, CSW’s Advocacy Officer for South Asia, who returned last
week from a visit to the India-Burma border, said: “We are outraged by the
response to the protests from the Burmese military regime. The use of
force against peaceful protestors in this way is completely unacceptable,
and should be condemned by the international community. The courage of the
Burmese people who continue to defy this brutal regime inspires our
profound respect. We call on the United Nations Security Council to
respond to the current crisis by urgently passing a binding resolution
requiring the regime to release political prisoners, free democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, desist from brutal suppression of human rights and
engage in meaningful dialogue for a transition to democracy. We urge the
Security Council to set specific deadlines to monitor progress, and to
outline sanctions which could be imposed if the regime fails to meet these
demands. We welcome the measure President Bush outlined yesterday, and
call on the United Kingdom to take the lead within the European Union in
imposing targeted sanctions on the regime. We urge China, India and the
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to use their influence to
bring positive change to Burma.”

Stuart Windsor, CSW’s National Director, added: “We urge leaders of
Christian denominations around the world, and individual Christians
everywhere, to fulfil their Biblical mandate for justice by speaking up
and praying for the suffering people of Burma at this time. This is a
momentous and critical time for Burma and it is vital that we seize this
opportunity to support the movement for freedom.”

For more information, please contact Penny Hollings, Campaigns and Media
Manager at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8329 0045, email
pennyhollings at csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk.

CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom,
works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and
promotes religious liberty for all.