October 6, 2007
Myanmar Releases Detained Monks
but Diplomats not Hopeful
Yangon
Myanmar's junta has released hundreds of Buddhist monks arrested in
a crackdown on the largest anti-regime protests in 19 years, but few
see such lenience as a sign of positive change in the brutal
regime's tactics towards dissent, diplomats and activists said
Saturday.
The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, announced
Saturday that 404 of the 513 monks arrested since Sep 26 had already
been released from prison, together with 30 women who had been
caught in the authorities dragnet of 18 monasteries in Yangon,
citing military sources.
The regime previously said that altogether 2,093 people had been
arrested in their latest crackdown on dissent, of which 692 had been
released.
Authorities now acknowledge that they raided 18 monasteries in
Yangon last month as part of the crackdown on the monk-led
rebellion, which started on Sep 18 with peaceful barefoot marches
through the streets of the city and peaked on Sep 25 with 100,000
anti-government protesters.
Myanmar's junta crushed the "saffron revolution" on Sep 26 and 27,
killing at least 10 people, according to official figures.
Anti-government activists in Yangon say the death toll was closer to
200.
Residents near the Yeywey crematorium in Yangon saw government
personnel burning 71 bodies on the night of Sep 26, and people
living near Insein prison have witnessed three to four dead bodies
being brought out nightly from the notorious jail, where many of the
protesters were detained and reportedly beaten.
In is unlikely that the full extent of the atrocities committed
against Myanmar's revered monk hood and the laymen who joined their
peaceful protests will ever be disclosed.
Calls for an independent investigation into the events have been
ignored. Confidence in the United Nations' ability to do anything to
pressure the regime is limited and dwindling fast, diplomats said.
UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari visited Myanmar between Sep 29 to
Oct 2 to deliver a strong message of disapproval to the country's
ruling generals and returned to New York Thursday with a report for
the UN Security Council.
After the 15-member council met Friday it failed to reach a
consensus on future actions against the regime or even a joint
statement of condemnation.
What was decided was that Gambari would visit Myanmar again in
mid-November, but whether he visits depends on whether or not the
junta grants him a visa.
"After his critical statements in New York I doubt they will let
Gambari come back again," said Lars Backstrom, the Finnish
ambassador to Myanmar and Thailand.
A deputy director of the Myanmar Foreign Ministry in Naypyidaw, the
country's new capital, briefed Backstrom and the Danish ambassador
Friday.
"There were no surprises," said Backstrom of the briefing. Like many
Myanmar-watchers, the diplomat expressed pessimism about Myanmar's
prospects for democracy in the aftermath of the latest protests and
crackdowns.
"This was just another sad chapter in a very sad history of the
country," said Backstorm in an interview in Bangkok with DPA.
Senior General Than Shwe, who heads the ruling junta, has offered to
meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the precondition
that she drops her calls for "confrontation" and support for western
sanctions against the country.
Ironically, Suu Kyi has not been able to call for anything over the
past four years as she has been kept in near complete isolation
under house arrest in Yangon. She has no telephone, and the last
person she has met besides her maid and personal doctor was Gambari,
who held talks with her on Sep 30 and again on Oct 2.
Observers speculate that Than Shwe has set preconditions for a
dialogue with Suu Kyi in order to blame their eventual failure on
the 1991 Nobel peace prize laureate.
"The military has the upper hand. That's the fact," said Backstrom.
"Time is on their side."
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