Burma’s military junta rounded up the leadership of the country’s democracy movement yesterday as demonstrators marched in a rare protest against a 500 per cent rise in fuel prices.

Western human rights organisations said that they feared for the safety of 13 dissidents arrested amid some of the biggest demonstrations seen in a decade. Those being held include Min Ko Naing, the country’s most prominent dissident leader after Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winner, who has been held under house arrest in Rangoon for 11 years.

The dissidents are members of the 88 Generation Students group, formed by veterans of the 1988 protests in which hundreds of demonstrators were massacred by troops while demanding democratic reforms.

Min Ko Naing has already spent 16 years in jail for peaceful political activities. With his arrest on Tuesday night, he now faces up to 20 years more in jail.

The junta’s official newspaper, New Light of Myanmar, said of the protesters: “Their agitation to cause civil unrest was aimed at undermining peace and security of the State.” Myanmar is the military Government’s name for the country known under British rule as Burma.

Another dissident, Htay Kywe, in an audio recording e-mailed to journalists in Thailand, said: “Military intelligence and government intelligence seized their houses and searched their houses.” He escaped arrest and has gone into hiding.

According to human rights groups, at least ten more activists were reported to have been arrested yesterday as a few hundred people braved intimidation by pro-government militiamen to march in Rangoon.

“We are marching to highlight the economic hardship that Myanmar people are facing now, which has been exacerbated by the fuel price hike,” a woman who identified herself as Mimi told the Associated Press in Rangoon.

Members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, many disguised as street sweepers, with brooms and shovels, confronted the marchers and attacked them.

The authorities have clearly decided to clamp down on the protests after a crowd estimated at between 500 and 700 carried out a similar march on Sunday. Last week the junta announced that the cost of fuel would rise by as much as 500 per cent, driving up the cost of transport and food. Annual price inflation in Burma is already running at 30 per cent.

The protests come at a sensitive time for the junta which next month will receive the third visit of the United Nations envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari. He will deliver a report to the UN Security Council after the visit, and the Government will do everything it can to avoid scenes of disorder during his stay in Rangoon.

In 1990 Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in elections, but the junta refused to recognise the results. The generals have convened a national convention which is drafting a constitution as a milestone in what the Government calls a “seven-step road-map” to the restoration of democracy. Dissidents regard it as a cynical effort by the regime to defuse international pressure without any real intention of relinquishing power.

Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK, said: “The United Nations must set a deadline for genuine reform, including the release of all political prisoners. We have had 19 years of regime lies and 19 years of the international community dithering while thousands of Burmese people are arrested, tortured and killed.”

Times Recommends

• Zardari still has to tackle tough questions
• Material evidence 'debunks' Turin Shroud
• BBC criticised over Uganda gay execution poll