Three killed as Myanmar troops battle protests

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Seething crowds of Buddhist monks and civilians filled the streets of Myanmar's main city on Wednesday, defying warning shots, tear gas and baton charges meant to quell the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years.

Two Buddhist monks and a civilian were killed, hospital and monastery sources said, as decades of pent-up frustration at 45 years of unbroken military rule in the former Burma produced the largest crowds yet during a month of protests.

The United States and the European Union condemned the violence against demonstrators and asked the U.N. Security Council to consider sanctions against Myanmar when it met on the crisis on Wednesday.

Monks have been central to the protests that erupted from sporadic marches against a hike in fuel prices, as the Buddhist priesthood, the country's highest moral authority, goes head-to-head with the might of the military.

Some witnesses estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Yangon on Wednesday despite fears of a repeat of the ruthless suppression of Myanmar'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 almost deafening roars of anger at security forces.

But as darkness fell in Yangon, 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 people protesting against grinding poverty.

Five decades ago, the country 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 Yangon, residents said 10,000 people took to the streets on Wednesday, the Buddhist holy day.

DIVIDED REACTION

Western leaders appealed to the junta to exercise restraint over the protests.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the events in Myanmar a "tragedy" and urged its government to allow a U.N. envoy to visit the country and meet with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The regime has reacted brutally to people who were simply protesting peacefully," Rice said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, warning that the "age of impunity" in abusing human rights was over, said the European Union would look at "a whole range of sanctions".