Nine killed in Myanmar protest crackdown

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Soldiers and police fired into crowds of demonstrators in Myanmar's largest city and gave them 10 minutes to clear the streets or be shot on Thursday, with nine people killed in the second day of a crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years.

Far fewer demonstrators took to the streets as the military junta clamped down and soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night, rounding up hundreds of the monks who had been leading protests.

State television said at least nine people were killed.

As international concern mounted, U.S. President George W. Bush called on all countries with influence over Myanmar to tell the junta to stop using force, and met with China's foreign minister to press the point.

"Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand up for people suffering under a brutal military regime like the one that has ruled Burma for so long," he said in a statement.

China, which neighbors Myanmar and is one of the military-ruled country's few allies, is a key trading partner and arms supplier to Myanmar and is seen as the linchpin for any international effort to defuse the situation.

One of the dead was a Japanese photographer, shot when soldiers cleared the area near Sule Pagoda -- a focus of the protests -- as loudspeakers blared out warnings, ominous reminders of the crushing of a 1988 uprising in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

In another area of Yangon, soldiers opened fire into crowds after a military truck drove into protesters, onlookers said. Three people were killed on the spot.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in an unusually blunt statement, demanded member Myanmar stop using violence and voiced "revulsion" at the killings.

At Yangon's Sule Pagoda, 200 soldiers marched toward the crowd and riot police clattered their rattan shields with wooden batons. "It's a terrifying noise," one witness said.

The army moved in after 1,000 chanting protesters hurled stones and water bottles at troops, prompting a police charge in which shots were fired.

The crackdown in the country of 56 million people began on Wednesday when soldiers and police fired tear gas, clubbed protesters and arrested up to 200 monks in an attempt to quash the uprising.

MONASTERY RAIDS

Sporadic marches against fuel price hikes have swelled over the past month into mass demonstrations against 45 years of military rule in the former Burma. It is the worst unrest to hit the poor and isolated nation since the rebellion by students and monks in 1988.

Troops dispersing crowds on Thursday chased fleeing people, beating anybody they could catch, witnesses said.