Monks massacred as envoy is sidelined
- UN envoy given runaround
- Monastery massacre reported
- Monks ‘facing starvation’
Burma's top generals continued today to keep UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari waiting for a meeting to discuss the country's crisis, sending him instead on a sightseeing tour of a remote area near the Chinese border, writes Edward Loxton from Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Gambari arrived in Burma two days ago, but has since met only lesser-ranking military officials, adding fuel to reports of a top-level split over the brutal suppression of week-long peaceful demonstrations by monks and other protesters.
But the capricious way in which Gambari is being treated by junta supremo Than Shwe (pictured on next page) and his second-in-command, Maung Aye, is being increasingly regarded as a way of embarrassing Gambari and his employers in New York.
Gambari even allowed himself to be given a seat at a pro-government rally in the remote town of Lashio, attended by rent-a-crowd local residents, one of whom confirmed being paid the equivalent of US$2 to attend.
While Gambari tours eastern areas of Burma where government forces hold sway, troops and police in Rangoon and Mandalay continue to tighten their grip on the intimidated population.
Insistent reports emerged today that on the very day Gambari was scheduled to meet military leaders, a massacre occurred at one of Rangoon's finest monasteries, Ngwe Kyar Yan.
Troops supported by paramilitary thugs launched a pre-dawn raid on the monastery on Sunday, dragging 200 monks from their beds, most of them young novices, lining them up against a wall and smashing their skulls. Reports of the outrage reached London, where a reliable blog site, Ko Htike, run by Burmese students in the British capital, gave a graphic description of the horror.
The blog said the raiders "systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one's head against a brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non-resisting monks fell to the ground."
The monastery's elderly abbot was tied up, tortured and hit with clubs. He later died from his injuries. Bodies were thrown into army trucks and driven to an unknown destination, eyewitnesses said.
The blog also carried photographs of the horribly bruised body of a monk lying face down in a river near the monastery.
The television station Al-Jazeera carried an interview today with a young monk who said he and others would resist government oppression "to the end".
There are no monks to be seen anymore in the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay, where monasteries have been sealed off by troops and police.
The detained monks are reportedly refusing to accept food from the authorities, who have banned local people from feeding them in the customary way. "They literally face starvation," said one Rangoon resident. ·
