BURMA:Seething crowds of Buddhist monks and civilians filled the streets of Burma's main city yesterday, defying warning shots, tear gas and baton charges meant to quell the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years.
Two monks and a civilian were killed, hospital and monastery sources said, as pent-up frustration at 45 years of military rule produced the largest crowds yet during a month of protests.
Some witnesses estimated 100,000 people took to the streets yesterday despite fears of a repeat of the ruthless suppression of Burma's last major uprising, in 1988, when soldiers opened fire, killing an estimated 3,000 people.
"They are marching down the streets, with the monks in the middle and ordinary people either side. They are shielding them, forming a human chain," one witness said over roars of anger at security forces.
As darkness fell in Rangoon, however, people dispersed ahead of a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The streets were almost deserted.
In the second city of Mandalay, also under curfew, the Asian Human Rights Commission said there was no opposition to 10,000 protesting against poverty.
Five decades ago, Burma was regarded as one of Asia's brightest prospects. Now it is one of its most desperate.
In the northwest coastal town of Sittwe, which has seen some of the biggest protests outside Rangoon, residents said 10,000 took to the streets yesterday, the Buddhist holy day.
World leaders appealed again to the junta to exercise restraint over protests that started against fuel price rises last month and erupted into a major revolt after soldiers fired shots over monks in the town of Pakokku on September 5th.
Yesterday afternoon, riot police fired tear gas at columns of monks trying to push their way past barricades sealing off the Shwedagon pagoda, Burma's holiest shrine and the starting point of more than a week of marches.
"We cannot know if many people were injured, but we can be sure that blood was spilled," French diplomat Emmanuel Mouriez, in Burma, told French radio RTL. "We have several witnesses who speak of people on the floor. There were some monks who were beaten up."
As many as 200 maroon-robed monks were arrested at the gilded shrine as the Buddhist priesthood, the country's highest moral authority, went head-to-head with the military.
"This is a test of wills between the only two institutions in the country that have enough power to mobilise nationally," said Bradley Babson, a retired World Bank official who worked in Burma.
"Between those two institutions, one of them will crack. If they take overt violence against the monks, they risk igniting the population against them."
The junta, whose leaders remain hunkered down in a new capital 385 km (250 miles) to the north, had tried to keep the monks off the streets, sending trucks of soldiers and police to block six activist monasteries early in the morning.
The generals also rounded up prominent dissidents, including comedian Za Ga Na, who had urged people on to the streets.
Riot police remained outside the lakeside home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to ensure no attempt was made to pluck the 62-year-old Nobel laureate from house arrest.
United Nations high commissioner for human rights Louise Arbour warned Burma's rulers they could face an international court for violence against the protesters. "The use of excessive force and all forms of arbitrary detention of peaceful protesters are strictly prohibited under international law," she said.
A Burma opposition leader said he feared more people will die. "It is not a good sign. The confrontation has already started," Sein Win, who heads a self-proclaimed government-in-exile, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from Paris.