God must think about these cruel people in Burma

Soldiers announced they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Burma’s largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said she heard that military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night.

Military vehicles patrolled the streets before dawn with loudspeakers blaring, “We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!”

Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Burma, said in a telephone interview that people in Rangoon were terrified.

“From what we understand, military police … are traveling around the city in the middle of the night, going into homes and picking up people,” she said.

The U.N.’s special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, declined to comment on his four-day mission to Burma, where the military junta last month crushed mass pro-democracy demonstrations led by the nation’s revered Buddhist monks.

Hundreds of monks and civilians were carted off to detention camps during protests last week. The government says 10 people were killed in the violence, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200. They say 6,000 people were detained.

Villarosa said embassy staff had gone to some monasteries in recent days and found them completely empty. Others were barricaded by the military and declared off-limits to outsiders.

“There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?” she said. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway, said authorities have released 90 of 400 monks detained in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, during a midnight raid on monasteries on Sept. 25.

A semblance of normality returned to Rangoon after daybreak, with some shops opening and light traffic on roads.

However, “people are terrified, and the underlying forces of discontent have not been addressed,” Villarosa said. “People have been unhappy for a long time … Since the events of last week, there’s now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear.”

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