AP
Posted: 2007-10-03 13:57:28
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YANGON, Myanmar – After squashing a pro-democracy uprising with guns, Myanmar’s junta switched to a brutal campaign of dragging people from their homes at night and letting others know they were marked for detention.
Military vehicles patrolled the streets of Myanmar’s main city of Yangon before dawn Wednesday with loudspeakers blaring, “We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!”
Residents living near the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar’s most revered shrine and a flash point of unrest, reported that police swept through several dozen homes at about 3 a.m., dragging away many men for questioning.
A U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were among those taken away by police, the U.N. agency confirmed.
“People are terrified,” said Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Myanmar. “People have been unhappy for a long time. Since the events of last week, there’s now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear.”
Buddhist monks in Yangon were ordered to vacate their monasteries – the flash points of protests last week – and return home to prevent future unrest.
Scores of monks jammed Yangon’s main train station but it was not clear who had ordered them to leave. Some in Myanmar say the older abbots are closely tied with the junta, while the younger monks are more sympathetic to the democracy protesters.
New video footage broadcast Wednesday on CNN showed police and soldiers rounding up demonstrators, clubbing them before loading them onto trucks. In one shot, about six young men are squatting on the street, hands on their heads, cringing. One wearing a red shirt – the color adopted by the protest movement – is singled out for particular abuse.
The video also showed a man lying on the ground, his shirt bloodied, while another man looked around frantically as he tried to tend to him.
The footage appeared to have been shot three or four days earlier in downtown Yangon.
The security forces on Wednesday were looking for people who had participated in the pro-democracy demonstrations, which troops brutally crushed last week with live gunfire, tear gas and baton charges.