By DPA
Yangon : Over 15,000 Buddhist monks and laymen marched through the streets of Yangon Sunday in an escalating protest against Myanmar’s military regime, which has thus far refrained from cracking down on the saffron-robed rebellion.
More than 3,000 monks, joined for the first time by 300 nuns, from various townships marched to the Shwedagon Pagoda, and then continued to Sule Pagoda and wove their way north, drawing more followers as they proceeded.
There is speculation that the protesters are bound for the Yangon compound of Aung San Suu Kyi, whom they visited on Saturday. The Nobel peace laureate appeared in public for the first time in years.
Eyewitnesses said Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since May, 2003, repeatedly told the monks “sandu,” or “well done,” and shed tears of joy when they departed.
On Sunday the monks carried banners reading, “Untruth will be overcome by truth,” and “Injustice will be overcome by justice,” giving their protest more of a political tone than previous marches.
They were joined by more than 10,000 laymen, making Sunday’s protest march the largest anti-government gathering in more than a decade.
Some of the laymen followers shouted political slogans such as “Free Aung San Suu Kyi.” Others stressed economic issues. “Lower commodity prices, that is our cause,” was one popular chant.
Myanmar’s military rulers last month let out people’s pent-up frustration with the deteriorating economy when they more than doubled fuel prices on August 15.
Peaceful demonstrations against the fuel hikes started in Yangon on Aug 19, but were quickly suppressed by authorities who arrested more than 100 protest leaders.
The protest movement was picked up by Myanmar’s revered monkhood earlier this month, and has now spread nationwide, and the monks are getting more daring in their tactics.
The monks’ protest movement appears to have caught Myanmar’s military junta off guard, and seasoned Myanmar-watchers are unsure where the rebellion is heading.
“It’s hard to know,” said Robert Taylor, author of “The State in Burma”. “But I don’t see the regime is tottering,” said Taylor, who is currently in Yangon.
Myanmar’s junta has kept a tight lid on discontent for the past 19 years, cracking down on all shows of student-led protests and dissent from opposition politicians such as Suu Kyi’s supporters.
Thus far, none of Myanmar’s Buddhist leaders have come out openly in favour or against the protests.
It is estimated that anywhere between 5,000 to 50,000 of Myanmar’s 400,000-strong monks have joined the non-violent movement to protest the country’s deteriorating economic conditions.
The monks’ movement has put Myanmar’s regime in an awkward position. If the rulers do not crack down on the protests, the demonstrations are likely to spread, but if they attack the monks, they would enrage the people.
Buddhist monks have a long history of political activism in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country.
The monkhood played a prominent role in Myanmar’s struggle for independence from Great Britain, which came in 1948, and joined students in the anti-military demonstrations that rocked Myanmar in 1988 and ended in bloodshed.
Like the recent protests, the 1988 mass demonstrations were sparked by rising discontent with the military’s mismanagement of the economy and refusal to introduce some semblance of democracy.
On Sep 8, 1988, the army cracked down on the pro-democracy movement, leaving an estimated 3,000 dead.
The generals at the time vowed to never allow a repeat of 1988, a vow they have carried out through the suppression of any show of unrest in the country.
Although the military allowed a general election in 1990, it ignored the outcome when 80 per cent of the votes went to the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi’s party. Its reaction made the junta a pariah in the West.