The Burmese general responsible for the city of Rangoon was sacked yesterday, suggesting that last week's popular uprising may have exposed divisions in the military.| Problem is, the people haven't yet suffered enough to be enraged enough to knock the generals aside. |
A Western diplomat said that Senior General Than Shwe, who controls the junta, favoured crushing the protests with even more extreme violence. Hla Htay Win is seen as a loyalist of Than Shwe's deputy and potential rival, Vice Senior General Mg Aye.
Mg Aye is sometimes portrayed as a moderate, although in the context of the Burmese junta that is a relative term which does not imply moderation as most people understand it.
| There's a nice understatement. |
America yesterday accused Than Shwe of personally ordering the crackdown. "The stories are that he is isolated and that his staff are afraid to give him bad news but we do believe that he is the one to give the orders to crack down, so he is not totally out of touch," said Shari Villarosa, the US charge d'affaires in Rangoon.
Meanwhile fears mounted for the wellbeing of an estimated 1,500 people who were taken away by the army in the city last week. The Asian Human Rights Commission said that they "must all be treated as disappeared, not arrested, until their whereabouts and conditions are confirmed".
Some accounts say that they are being starved and that prisoners have died of untreated injuries. Miss Villarosa said that she had heard that up to 200 people had been killed during the protests and thousands had been arrested. "We have had people going around various monasteries and they have found them deserted," she said.
The junta is now confident enough that the protests have been crushed to remove the barbed wire and security cordons around the Shwedagon Pagoda, the starting place of daily demonstrations last week.