Nine Deaths Reported in Myanmar Crackdown

By SETH MYDANS
Published: September 27, 2007

BANGKOK, Sept. 27 — Government security forces in Myanmar cracked down for a second day today on nationwide protests, firing shots and tear gas and raiding at least two Buddhist monasteries, where they beat and arrested dozens of monks, according to reports from the city of Yangon.

Tear gas hovered above the steps of the Shwedagon Pagoda on Wednesday in Yangon as the riot police broke up demonstrations.

Further casualties were reported, following at least half a dozen deaths on Wednesday.

The Myanmar government told the Japanese Embassy in Yangon that a Japanese national was killed, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. Reports indicated he was a photographer. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official told The Associated Press that several other people were found dead after the protests.

The A.P. reported that more shots were fired today at one of several monasteries that were raided early in the day. At the monastery, Ngwe Kyar Yan, one monk said a number of monks were beaten and at least 70 of its 150 monks were arrested. A female lay disciple said several monks were arrested at a second monastery, Moe Guang, which was being guarded, like a number of other monasteries, by a contingent of armed security personnel.

At least four other people “had been shot quite seriously” on Tarami Street, a British diplomat said, according to Reuters.

World leaders have urged the Myanmar government to respond to the protests with restraint.

China — Myanmar’s most important trading partner, investor and strategic ally — on Wednesday blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn the government crackdown. But a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a news briefing today, “We hope that all parties in the Myanmar issue will maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have currently arisen so they do not become more complicated or expand, and don’t affect Myanmar’s stability and even less affect regional peace and stability.”

Also today, the White House demanded that Myanmar’s military government immediately halt the crackdown.

“The Burmese government should not stand in the way of its people’s desire for freedom,” the White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said, according to Reuters. “They must stop this violence against peaceful protesters now.”

Security forces have clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air, or according to an A. P. report today, into a crowd, and arrested hundreds of the monks, who are at the heart of the demonstrations.

Wednesday’s Protests

According to reports, crowds on the streets were larger than on Wednesday, despite the crackdown.

On Wednesday, in a chaotic day of huge demonstrations, shooting, tear gas and running confrontations between protesters and the military, many people were reported injured, and half a dozen were reported to have been killed, most of them by gunshots.

A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.

Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.

In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

However, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the United Nations was “urgently dispatching” a special envoy to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

A day before, White House officials had expressed hope that Mr. Bush’s announcement of new sanctions directed against the military government’s leaders would intensify pressure on them not to use violence against the protesters.

“The United States is very troubled by the action of the junta against the Burmese people,” Mr. Johndroe, said Wednesday afternoon. “We call on them to show restraint and to move to a peaceful transition to democracy.”

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