where is myanmar

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Friday renewed pleas to the Myanmar junta to end a crackdown on pro-democracy protestors which has left at least 13 dead.

The two men discussed the situation in Myanmar and "the need for countries around the world to continue to make their views clear to the junta, that they need to refrain from violence and move to a peaceful transition to democracy," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

"What is going on is certainly very troubling, and we call on the junta to stop the violence against people who want to bring about, peacefully, democracy," Stanzel added.

Ignoring world pressure, security forces on Friday clamped down on protests in Myanmar's two biggest cities, firing warning shots and using baton charges in the third day of the crackdown.

The military regime also appeared to have cut the main Internet link to block images and reports of the violence from the isolated nation, which have galvanized world opinion against the ruling generals.

"The reports today that the junta has tried to cut off access to the Interest in that country are very telling. They don't want the world to see what is going on there," said Stanzel.

"They don't want the pressure that the world community is bringing to bear."

Brown and Bush also stressed the importance of a visit to Myanmar this weekend by the UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during a secured video conference, Stanzel said.

The White House has called for Gambari to be allowed to visit democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who is under house arrest in Yangon, during his trip to the country due at the weekend.

"We are very pleased that UN envoy Mr Gambari is going to be going to Burma, he will be there tomorrow," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, using the former name for Myanmar.

"We have called on the Burmese to allow him to be able to meet with anyone he wants to meet, the military leaders, the religious leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi," she added.

On Friday about 10,000 people surged onto the streets of the main city of Yangon, playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as they repeatedly confronted police and soldiers before scattering and regrouping once more.

In the central city of Mandalay, thousands of young people on motorbikes rode down a major thoroughfare towards a blockade set up by security forces who unleashed a volley that witnesses believed could have been rubber bullets.

The US administration has slapped economic sanctions on 14 leaders of the military junta, including its leader general Than Shwe, and Bush has called on Myanmar's powerful neighbor, China, to use its influence on the regime to end the violence.
Aileen McCabe, CanWest News Service Asia Correspondent, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, September 28, 2007
At least 13 people are reported to have died and hundreds jailed as heavily armed police and soldiers continued clashing with anti-government protesters in Myanmar Friday. The repressive military regime's ruling junta also cracked down on the flow of information out of the main city of Yangon, seizing cellphones, shutting down media outlets and apparently crippling Internet communications.

An estimated 10,000 people swarmed through the streets on the third day of mass protests, even though security officials succeeded in beating them back and barricading off large parts of the city, formerly known as Rangoon. Angry youths shouted taunts at the soldiers who lined the streets, then ran away when the soldiers approached.

As the tension mounted, the only hopeful news was that United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was on his way to Myanmar after the military junta agreed to allow him to enter the country. The White House said Friday that Mr. Gambari must be allowed to meet with Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest in Yangon.


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Font: ****"We have called on the Burmese to allow him to be able to meet with anyone he wants to meet, the military leaders, the religious leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, using the former name for Myanmar. Mr. Gambari was in Singapore Friday en route to Myanmar.

It may, however, be difficult to determine what, if anything Mr. Gambari achieves after Myanmar's military rulers tightened the screws on what are already tightly controlled media.

People found with cellphones or cameras were beaten by soldiers, witnesses said, while a Japanese photojournalist died Thursday after being shot.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said the regime was trying to establish a media blackout so it can operate "behind closed doors."

The organization charged that "the flow of information is drying up" and "there is an urgent need to help the Myanmar and foreign journalists so that they can continue to provide information."

According to the monitoring group, all Yangon cybercafes have been closed and that the military is persecuting reporters who continue to try to work despite the difficult conditions. A telecom official said the nation's main link to the Internet was down, blaming the problem on a damaged cable rather than intervention by the junta.

The turmoil Friday marked the 11th straight day of protests. The unrest was triggered when the ruling junta in this impoverished Southeast Asian nation doubled fuel prices on Aug. 15. The revered Buddhist monks began the peaceful marches, but were soon joined by thousands of ordinary citizens.

State media accused Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy, of promoting the unrest by paying people to take part in the biggest challenge to the regime in 20 years.

Two senior members of Suu Kyi's party are already in custody, but diplomats believe Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate, remains safe.

The violence in Myanmar triggered a new round of worldwide condemnation on Thursday. The United States demanded the ruling generals end "violence against peaceful protesters" calling the crackdown "outrageous."

The Association of South-East Asian Nations, which counts Myanmar among its members -- and rarely criticizes any of them -- expressed "revulsion" at the scenes of police and soldiers attacking the unarmed protesters.

Even China, Myanmar's largest trading partner, issued its first public call for the regime to show restraint Thursday, but did not directly condemn the crackdown.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu urged Myanmar to "properly handle the current situation" and restore
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Clashes between security personnel and pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar entered a third day after the military junta sent its forces into the streets of the former capital, Yangon, to quell demonstrations.

``There are clashes under way. We have heard shots,'' U.K. Ambassador to Myanmar Nick Canning told Cable News Network television. The protesters are driven by ``deep economic pressures so severe'' that they ``have put their lives in jeopardy,'' he said. Agence France-Presse reported that security forces fired shots over crowds numbering some 10,000 people.

International condemnation of the regime in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has grown since soldiers were deployed in Yangon to end the biggest anti-government protests in almost 20 years. The Treasury Department in Washington froze financial assets in the U.S. of 14 junta leaders and the European Union is considering tightening sanctions.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the violence today. ``I had hoped that the Burmese regime would heed the calls for restraint from the international community,'' he said in an e-mailed statement. ``But once again they have responded with oppression and force. This must cease.'' The U.K. is pressing for tougher EU sanctions, Brown added.

Security forces killed about 4,000 people when they quelled a similar revolt in 1988. ``This time I don't think it will be that easy,'' Sein Win, prime minister of the Burmese government- in-exile, said in an interview in Paris today. ``The people are standing up. The economic problem is very real.''

Toll Questioned

The death toll from the protests is ``significantly'' higher than the junta has revealed, said Australia's envoy to the country, Bob Davis.

``Several multiples of the 10 acknowledged by the authorities'' have been killed, Davis said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio today from Yangon.

Four monks were arrested today in a raid by security forces on a monastery outside the city, AFP said. Buddhist monks have taken a leading role in the biggest show of defiance against the junta since the student-led pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

The junta may begin to discuss a peaceful transition to democracy, Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and special adviser on conflict prevention to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters today in Oslo. ``That kind of a regime belongs in the garbage cans of history. They have no place in the world in 2007,'' Egeland said, adding that he was speaking in his role as the institute's head.

`Exceptional Scenes'

The ``exceptional scenes'' of the protests are being shown around the world by the media ``in a way they weren't shown in 1988,'' the U.K.'s Canning told CNN. The coverage ``is having an effect,'' and may encourage the protesters to maintain their efforts, he added. The population is ``thoroughly revolted in terms of monks being killed, or injured, places of worship being treated in a disrespectful fashion.''

Analysts questioned whether sanctions would curb the junta's actions and said the crackdown may get worse.

``A military government in any country will do anything to stay in power and Myanmar is no exception,'' Hiro Katsumata, Southeast Asian affairs researcher at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, said by telephone yesterday. ``Unless there is substantial international pressure on Myanmar, the military government will not do anything.''

U.S. and EU sanctions will only be effective if China, India and neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations follow suit, Katsumata added.

The protests began five weeks ago amid anger at rising fuel prices, though the monks joined the movement in force after a Sept. 5 rally in the central city of Pakokku, during which soldiers fired warning shots and militia members beat some of them.