Monks march again in Burma

More than 100 Buddhist monks marched and chanted in northern Burma for nearly an hour this morning, in the first such march since the government’s deadly crackdown last month on pro-democracy demonstrations, two monks said.

The monks in the town of Pakokku did not shout slogans or make political statements, but the town was the scene of some of the pro-democracy protests led by monks last month that were stamped out after troops opened fire on demonstrators during the September 26-27 crackdown.

They started their march at Shwegu Pagoda in Pakokku, a centre for Buddhist learning with more than 80 monasteries about 390 miles north-west of the country’s commercial centre of Rangoon.

They marched for nearly one hour, saying Buddhist prayers without incident, and then returned to the respective monasteries, two monks said in telephone interviews.