Myanmar monks march past Suu Kyi's home

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Buddhist monks were allowed to march past police barricades to the home of detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday as street protests intensified against the ruling military junta.

A witness said armed police stepped aside as the monks approached Yangon's leafy University Avenue which has been blocked off during the past five days of street protests.

"The monks just walked past chanting holy scriptures peacefully. I saw Aunty Suu inside the compound," a young man who followed the monks told Reuters.

A Burmese exile group said 2,000 monks gathered outside the home of the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader, who has rarely been seen since her latest detention began in 2003.

"She came out from the house and gave respect," the exile group said in an e-mailed statement.

Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide in election in 1990, the first multi-party elections to be held since 1960, but the military ignored the result.

In their biggest march since launching the street campaign five days ago, at least 5,000 Buddhist monks marched through Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, on Saturday, witnesses said. Other observers put the marchers at nearly 10,000.

"There were several thousand onlookers on both sides of their route, giving water to the monks," one witness said.