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Burmese soldiers fire weapons into crowd Updated Thu. Sep. 27 2007 9:43 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Burmese forces fired on anti-government protesters with automatic weapons on Thursday, killing a Japanese national and several others, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
Thousands of Buddhist monks and young activists descended on the country's largest city in an ongoing protest against the ruling Burmese military junta.
Unconfirmed reports say the dead include Buddhist monks and at least five people have been severely beaten during demonstrations.
Thursday's protests followed reports that six Buddhist monasteries were raided overnight with hundreds of monks hauled away in trucks in an attempt to quell an uprising.
The monks -- who are revered in the predominantly Buddhist country -- are leading the protests that represent the largest challenge to the military government in nearly two decades.
When faced with a similar uprising in 1988, the military government quashed a student-led democracy movement, killing thousands of peaceful demonstrators and traumatizing the nation.
On Wednesday, Burma's state radio confirmed at least one person was killed and three others wounded after security forces cracked down on anti-government protests.
The government's military junta said security forces fired into a crowd of thousands as they demonstrated near the Sule Pagoda in the centre of Rangoon. A 30-year-old man died after being hit by a ricocheting bullet, while three other people were injured in the ensuing chaos.
The National League for Democracy, headed by leader Aung San Suu Kyi, won a 1990 general election but was not allowed to take power by the military.
On Thursday, Burmese military forces arrested Myint Thein, the spokesman for opposition leader Suu Kyi's pro- democratic party, family members told The Associated Press.
China called on to apply pressure
Despite calls from the UN Security Council for the Burmese government to show restraint, there is no indication the junta is wavering under pressure.
Co-Founder of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Jeremy Woodrum, told CTV's Canada AM that China, Burma's top economic and diplomatic supporter, is the key to ending the escalating crisis.
"Many of the weapons that are being used against these peaceful, non-violent protesters are supplied by China. They are the Burmese regime's single most important friend in the world and yesterday we saw yet again, China paralyze the UN Security Council," Woodrum said Thursday during an interview from Washington.
The U.S. and European Union appealed to the UN to impose sanctions on the south Asian country, but China rejected the plan and instead opted to send UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to the region.
"China is the only country that has the leverage and if they called on the regime to not use force, the regime would have no choice. If they called on the regime to cooperate with the United Nations, than the regime would have no choice," Woodrum said.
China and Russia both contend unrest in Burma is strictly an internal matter. Both countries vetoed a UN resolution in January that was critical of the Burmese government.
In a bi-weekly briefing to the media, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Thursday: "China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated."
Protesters began to organize on Aug. 19 after the government raised oil prices in the predominantly poor nation.
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