No rights for Burmese people by Claudia Sonea

In response to the government's decision to double the price of fuel last month, eight days ago a protest began in order to overthrow it. On Monday five columns of 1000 monks with 400 sympathizers that joined, including officials from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party whose leader is Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Prize and a democracy supporter that was arrested for five years now, marched to her house where she is detained, in Rangoon. The Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks is the organization that leads the protest and stated they won't give up until they wipe the military dictatorship. There are fears that the 1988 tragedy might happen again- 3000 people were killed by the military due to the democracy uprising. Burma's military junta already announced that they are ready for actions and that the Buddhist Monks that started the protest will be severely punished. Therefore the USA is taken actions against the military leaders and will give ban on US visa according to US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Mandalay, Sittwe and Pakokku are just three of the 25 towns and cities where marches took place. Brig Gen Thura Myint Maung, minister for religion in a meeting with the clergy warned that if the militant young monks won't be controlled otherwise action against them will be taken according to the law. China pressures the government to avoid the bloodshed and instability, also EU tried to solve the matter and appealed to Burma's leader in order to solve the problem peacefully and demonstrate that a political reform it is possible. Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader although supports the struggle for freedom and democracy, asks the militaries to not use violence against the ones that march. But UK Ambassador Mark Canning stated that even if the violence is not desired, it is more likely to happen because the generals might see their authority threaten. Until further details, BBC Asia correspondent Andrew Harding reports that a reconciliation doesn't seem probable.

related story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7010839.stm

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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