Monks defy regime protest orders

SOLDIERS, including an army division that took part in the brutal suppression of a 1988 uprising, converged on Burma’s largest city after thousands of monks and sympathisers defied government orders to stay out of politics and protested once again yesterday.

Cheered on by supporters, the Buddhist monks marched out for an eighth day of peaceful protest from Yangon’s soaring Shwedagon Pagoda, while a total of 700 others staged a similar show of defiance in the country’s second largest city of Mandalay.

“The protest is not merely for the wellbeing of people, but also for monks struggling for democracy and for people to have an opportunity to determine their own future,” one monk said.