The Burmese military dictatorship deployed soldiers around Rangoon yesterday and imposed curfews in the biggest cities amid ominous signs that the Armed Forces were preparing to crush the massive pro-democracy demonstrations.

As the regime banned meetings of more than five people, cars with loudspeakers drove around Rangoon warning citizens not to join the demonstrations. “People are not to follow, encourage or take part in these marches,” they declared. “Action will be taken against those who violate this order.”

Guerrilla commanders of the Karen National Union, an ethnic army that is fighting the regime for control of territory close to the Burmese-Thai border, reported that two army divisions were pulling out of the region, apparently heading for the capital.

International pressure on the junta to hand over power increased when President Bush imposed new economic sanctions and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader. But the dictatorship appeared determined to stand firm.

Expert View

Lives of the monks and supporters depend on whether the regime can remain deaf to the rest of the world

Richard Lloyd Parry

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An estimated 30,000 Buddhist monks and nuns and 70,000 secular demonstrators marched through Rangoon yesterday for the eighth successive day, despite the first signs that the regime of General Than Shwe planned to suppress the biggest challenge to its authority in 19 years.

The troops deployed on the street were relatively few - about 200 soldiers and riot police in 11 trucks, according to reports - but Burmese exiles in Thailand echoed the Karen rebels’ claim that two divisions had been diverted from border areas to converge on the capital. If true, this would be a grave step from a Government that killed as many as 3,000 protesters after similar mass demonstrations in 1988.

Opposition leaders in Rangoon are struggling to contain the energy of the demonstrations to prevent anything that could be used as a pretext for a crackdown by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta calls itself. They fear a split between radicals, who want to bring down the regime, and moderates, who believe that the most important thing is to avoid frightening off ordinary Burmese and bring them out in an overwhelming display of moral authority.

Ironically, the demonstrators are demanding much less of the SPDC than foreign governments, including the United States and Britain. The monks are asking for no more than an apology for abuse by the regime, a reduction in fuel prices, the release of political prisoners and political dialogue with the junta.

“There should be no agitation to topple the military regime,” Sann Aung, a member of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, told The Times yesterday. “It will make people much more wary of a military response and people will become very reluctant to join the movement.”

Mr Bush expanded financial sanctions and extended a visa ban on members of the ruling junta and their families yesterday. In a speech to the UN General Assembly, he said: “Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear.

Basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship are severely restricted. Ethnic minorities are persecuted. Forced child labour, human trafficking and rape are common. The regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Mr Miliband said that he hoped to see Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, become the leader of Burma.

Just as on previous days, the barefooted monks marched from the famous Shwedagon Pagoda down to the Sule Pagoda and then up to the United Nations offices, bearing portraits of the Buddha and the peacock flag of the NLD. They chanted prayers as onlookers linked hands to form a chain around them.

Their slogans expressed only indirect attacks on the regime. “Release Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners,” one chant went, and: “May the will of the people be fulfilled.” The crowd responded: “Our cause.”

Young activists with small digital cameras and mobile phone cameras sent out a steady stream of images via the internet, despite the efforts of the regime. Since the earliest demonstrations last month, mobile phone links and land lines of activists have been cut off and blocks installed in Burmese internet servers. But the young activists use foreign-hosted servers or proxy sites that surmount the firewalls and can access banned news sources.

Richard Lloyd Parry’s analysis plus video and pictures timesonline.co.uk/world

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