(Todayszaman) Crowds taunted soldiers and police who barricaded central Yangon on Friday to prevent more mass protests against Myanmar's 45 years of military rule and deepening economic hardship.
Potentially deadly games of cat and mouse went on for hours around the barbed-wire barriers in a city terrified of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in its ruthless crushing of an uprising.
Few monks were among the crowds taunting and cursing the soldiers. When the troops charged, the protesters vanished into narrow side streets, only to emerge elsewhere to renew their abuse until darkness fell and an overnight curfew loomed. "Down with the army. We only want democracy," some yelled in English. Despite the visceral anger in their voices, far fewer protesters turned out in Yangon than earlier in the week. "May the people who beat monks be struck down by lightning," others chanted in Burmese a day after soldiers ransacked 10 monasteries and carted off hundreds of the monks who filled five city blocks with their supporters on Monday and Tuesday. There has been no word on the fate of the detained monks who turned what started as small protests against shock fuel price rises last month into a mass uprising when they lent their huge moral weight to demonstrations against the junta. However, one monk pumped his fists in defiance at soldiers as a group of protesters carried him above their heads on Friday.Other monks told foreign Burmese-language broadcasters they were not going to give up. Speaking anonymously, they said a "united front of clergy, students and activists had been formed to continue the struggle." Several shots were fired on Friday, but there was no word of more casualties a day after troops swept protesters out of the city center, giving them 10 minutes to leave or be shot.