YANGON, Myanmar — Soldiers with automatic rifles fired into crowds of anti-government demonstrators Thursday, killing at least nine people in the bloodiest day in more than a month of protests demanding an end to military rule.
Bloody sandals lay scattered on some streets as protesters fled shouting “Give us freedom, give us freedom!”
On the second day of a brutal crackdown, truckloads of troops in riot gear also raided Buddhist monasteries on the outskirts of Yangon, beating and arresting dozens of monks, witnesses and Western diplomats said. Japan protested the killing of a Japanese photographer.
Daily demonstrations by tens of thousands have grown into the stiffest challenge to the ruling junta in two decades, a crisis that began Aug. 19 with rallies against a fuel price hike then escalated dramatically when monks began joining the protests.
With the government ignoring international appeals for restraint, troops fired into packs of demonstrators in at least four locations in Yangon, witnesses and a Western diplomat said. Protesters — some shouting “Give us freedom!” — dodged roadblocks and raced down alleys in a defiant game of cat and mouse with soldiers and riot police that went on for most of the day.
Some 70,000 protesters were on the streets at the height of the chaos, though the total was difficult to estimate as different groups broke up and later reformed.
Sandals were strewn by a pool of blood at one spot where people fled approaching police. In a brave challenge, a bare-chested man emerged from one crowd to advance toward riot officers, then was felled by a rubber bullet and suffered a beating by officers who took him away.
The junta’s heavy-handed tactics did not bode well for the monks and pro-democracy activists who are trying to bring down a military regime that has ruled since ousting a civilian government in 1962.
State radio said security forces fatally shot nine people, including a Japanese citizen, and wounded 11 people.
Some people had hoped the widespread reverence for Buddhist monks in Myanmar might weaken the resolve of rank-and-file soldiers to pursue the crackdown. Most males, including soldiers, serve briefly as monks as their youth. But so far no soldiers have changed sides as happened in 1988 when some air force personnel joined demonstrations.
“The soldiers shooting might be special troops, recruited from the hill country, often from orphanages. They have no family. They are raised (by the military) to do whatever they are told to do,” said Aye Chan Naing, chief editor for the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition shortwave radio station based in Norway.
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