Police on streets for anniversary of brutal crackdown

Armed riot police patrolled Rangoon and several other Burmese cities today as the country's opposition movement marked the first anniversary of the brutal crackdown on last September’s demonstrations, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post.

The date September 26 has entered Burma's calendar of events commemorating the current regime's 20-year iron rule - beginning with the September 1988 mass uprising in which thousands of protesters, mostly students and other young activists, died in clashes with security forces.

Fearing a repeat of the 1988 bloodshed, the present military junta under Gen Than Shwe responded hesitantly when demonstrations last August against drastic price rises grew in September into country-wide anti-government protests, led by thousands of monks. On September 26 it lost patience and ordered security forces to open fire on the demonstrators, drawing the first blood in a brief, brutal crackdown.

On the eve of today's anniversary, a bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop outside a Rangoon park, not far from the former capital's City Hall. At least eight people were injured.

Thousands of additional riot police were posted at local government buildings, markets and other public places, including the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, rallying points in last September's demonstrations. Monks at temples in Rangoon and other cities complained that they were being detained and questioned if they left their compounds.

Security was reported to be very tight in the central Burmese town of Pakokku, where last September's demonstrations began with a march by local monks. Riot police were also reported out in force in the Arakan capital, Sittwe, and Pegu, two other centres of last September's unrest.

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 26, 2008