By DPA
Bangkok : Scores of monks marched Thursday from the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar’s holiest site, into downtown Yangon in their third day of anti-government protests, residents said.
Hundreds of citizens lined the streets to show their support, witnesses said.
Monks, who are highly revered in devoutly Buddhist Myanmar, have traditionally been in the vanguard of protests against authoritarian governments there, be they colonial or military.
The ruling generals are reluctant to touch such culturally protected figures even though the military has shown little toleration for dissent since it seized power in 1962.
The monks were demanding a cut in energy and transport prices, which the government doubled last month, and an apology for the junta’s rough handling of a monk procession earlier this month.
The security forces permitted Thursday’s march but ostentatiously filmed the proceedings in a signal that authorities would know everything, said diplomats.
Protest marches have broken out in several locations this month, making it harder for the authorities to crack down of them. The monks have also driven home their displeasure with the regime by refusing to accepted alms from soldiers, a hurtful blow in the devout nation.
The regime in turn has attempted to paint the marching monks as deviant or fakes.
Foreign and exiled observers are divided over whether these robed protestors would trigger wider nationwide demonstrations as in 1988, which the government brutally suppressed. Protests against the government have been rare since then.