Myanmar hunting 4 monks who led protests

The junta statement said security forces “systematically controlled” the latest protests, and searched 18 monasteries.

Authorities initially detained 513 monks, one novice, 167 men and 30 women lay disciples, but most were released, state media said. It said “109 monks and nine men are still being questioned.”

On Thursday, state media has said nearly 2,100 people were detained in the crackdown, with almost 700 released. Dissident groups say about 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of monks.

The official also told the monks that nonreligious material was seized from the monastery, including pornographic videos, literature belonging to Suu Kyi’s party, headbands printed with a Nazi swastika or a U.S. flag.

The official denied foreign media reports that monks were killed and injured in the crackdown, the statement said.

It said the body found floating in Pazundaung Creek in eastern Yangon last week was not that of a monk, as reported by a dissident group, but of a man “with a piece of saffron robe tied round the neck.”

It blamed “internal and external destructive elements of inciting the monks who could tarnish the honor of the religion.”

Talk of sanctions
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing the 1988 pro-democracy uprising. Suu Kyi’s party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.

Suu Kyi has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest and was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign.

The diplomatic moves by the military leaders appeared aimed at staving off economic sanctions while also pleasing giant neighbor China, which worries the unrest could cause problems for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Many governments have urged stern U.N. Security Council action against Myanmar, but China and Russia have ruled out any council action, saying the crisis does not threaten international peace and security.

“No international imposed solution can help the situation,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Gunagya said Thursday.

Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union — the U.N. telecoms agency — said the government’s decision to block Internet access violated its citizens’ right to communicate.

Secure access to the Internet is a basic human freedom that “needs to be preserved, no matter what,” Toure said.

Life in Yangon was slowly returning to normal but security remained tight in downtown areas where protests were crushed last week. A half-dozen military trucks were stationed near the Sule Pagoda, a flash point of the unrest.

The typically busy area around the city’s famed Shwedagon Pagoda was eerily quiet, with residents avoiding the area outside the temple where monks were beaten by troops.

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