Aung San Suu Kyi's Missing Peace Warriors

3 October

Aung San Suu Kyi's Missing Peace Warriors

Six days after the brutal clampdown by the Burmese generals, the world is left wondering what has become of Aung San Suu Kyi's "peace warriors". The Buddhist monks, who last month turned small protests against hiked fuel prices into a mass display of peaceful protest against the military, have simply vanished from the streets.

Rangoon's famed Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's holiest shrine and the symbolic heart of the latest anti-junta uprising, remains occupied by soldiers. 25,000 troops have locked down Rangoon to prevent further demonstrations by monks and members of the '88 Student Generation.

Over the weekend, Burma's feared military intelligence units have mounted a sustained campaign to neutralise activists amongst the Buddhist clergy. Under cover of darkness, soldiers raided several Rangoon monasteries, intimidating, beating and arresting monks.

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With electronic communications disrupted by the military, couriers are running the gauntlet to carry the latest news from Rangoon to the Thai/Burma border. Reports are now emerging of temporary detention centres at the Rangoon Institute of Technology and General Institute of Technology. The five hundred monks detained at these temporary jails are refusing to accept food from their captors. Local people trying to bring food offerings to the monks have been turned away, placing the detained monks on an unintentional hunger strike.

Another two thousand monk have been detained in makeshift detention centres at Rangoon University, while key figures from the clergy are now behind bars at the infamous Insein Prison in Rangoon. Other disturbing reports claim thousands of monks have simply "disappeared".

For the last few weeks, the monks have proved an inspiration to the world by attempting to overthrow one of the planet's most vicious military dictorships with nothing more than prayers of peace and reconciliation.

ENDS

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