Myanmar Monks' march in rain over reign of error

NY Times:

The largest street protests in two decades against Myanmar’s military rulers gained momentum Sunday as thousands of onlookers cheered huge columns of Buddhist monks and shouted support for the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Winding for a sixth day through rainy streets, the protest swelled to 10,000 monks in the main city of Yangon, formerly Rangoon, according to witnesses and other accounts relayed from the closed country, including some clandestinely shot videos.

It came one day after a group of several hundred monks paid respects to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi at the gate of her home, the first time she has been seen in public in more than four years.

The link between the clergy and the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement, the beginnings of large-scale public participation in the marches and a call by some monks for a wider protest raised the stakes for the government.

So far, it has mostly allowed the monks free reign in the streets, apparently fearing a public backlash if it cracks down on them in this Buddhist nation.

Monks were reported to be parading through a number of cities on Sunday, notably the country’s second largest city, Mandalay, where an estimated 10,000 people, including 4,000 monks, had marched Saturday.

Myanmar’s military government has sealed off the country to foreign journalists but information about the protests has been increasingly flowing out through wire service reports, exile groups in Thailand with contacts inside Myanmar, and through the photographs, videos and audio files, carried rapidly by technologies, including the Internet, that the government has failed to squelch.

The state-controlled press has carried no reports about the monks’ demonstrations.

Since the military crushed a peaceful nationwide uprising in 1988, killing an estimated 3,000 civilians, the country, formerly known as Burma, has sunk further into poverty and repression and become a symbol for the outside world of the harsh military subjugation of a people.

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The despots in charge fear a general uprising if they stop the Monks and they may get one anyway. At this point the monks appear to be persistent in their march even though they are saying little. The meeting with the democracy advocate appears to be their only message. The former Burma is right next to the relatively free Thailand and the jungle border is impossible to secure so the message keeps slipping out. Religion is still a scary thing to the despots. That is encouraging.

An AP/CNN report puts the number of marchers at 100,000.

Some 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military.

As the march headed toward the Defense Ministry's offices along a straight stretch of road, the back of the crowd could not be seen from the front. Monks and activists estimated the turnout was about 100,000, though an exact count was difficult.

The march, launched from the Shwedagon pagoda, the country's most sacred shrine, gathered participants as it winded its way through Yangon's streets. Some 20,000 monks took the lead, with onlookers joining in on what had been billed as a day of general protest.

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I suspect the monks are more anti government than they are pro democracy. They are, however, very organized, and the government must fear a general uprising if it kills them. This can be a moment that may imply change, but it will take weeks of such demonstrations to see whether they will have any results.

The Australian has an excellent editorial on the problems in Burma and its kooky generals.

Gateway Pundit has massive coverage and many photos.