Myanmar threatens protesting monks

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's military government issued a threat yesterday to the barefoot Buddhist monks who led 100,000 people marching through the capital, in the strongest protests against the repressive rule in two decades.

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

The authorities did not stop the protests yesterday, even as they built to a scale and fervour that rivalled the demonstrations bloodily suppressed by the army with mass shootings 19 years ago.

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The government has been handling the monks gingerly, wary of raising the ire of citizens in this mostly Buddhist country.


However, last night the country's religious affairs minister appeared on state television to accuse the monks of being manipulated by the government's domestic and foreign enemies. Meeting with senior monks at Yangon's Kaba Aye Pagoda, Brig.-Gen. Thura Myint Maung said the protesting monks represented just 2% of the country's total.

He suggested that if senior monks did not restrain them, the government would act according to its own regulations, which he didn't detail.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said yesterday that Canada is calling on the Myanmar government to engage in a genuine dialogue with members of the democratic opposition.

"We also call upon the Burmese authorities to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the protesters and the people of Burma (Myanmar)," Bernier said.

Yesterday, after the crowds marched for more than 20 km, a last hardcore group walked to where police blocked access to the street where Nobel laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest.