Myanmar Junta Rules Roost 1 Year After Crackdown

As the crowd marching through the streets of Myanmar's biggest city swelled to 100,000, the question wasn't what did they want, but when would the government crack down.

General Secretary of National Unity Party, Maung Maung Gyi, speaks to reporters before attending the 20th anniversary of party founding celebrations, at the party headquarters in Yangon Wednesday Sept. 24, 2008.(AP Photo)

(AP)

The answer came days later, on Sept. 26, 2007, when truckloads of heavily armed soldiers and riot police flooded Yangon's streets, hurling tear gas, beating and shooting at Buddhist monks and other pro-democracy protesters. In three days of mayhem, at least 31 people were killed, according to a U.N. estimate.

A year later, Myanmar's "Saffron Revolution" — named after the color of the robes worn by the militant young monks spearheading the protests — is a bitter memory.

"I have lost hope in the future of the country. A regime that can kill monks will not give up its power easily. There could only be more bloodshed if people go out on the streets again," Maung Maung, a 52-year-old electrician, said in Yangon this week.

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An explosion injured seven people near Yangon's City Hall on Thursday, indicating some remnants of the violence may remain. Riot police poured into the area where the explosion occurred and sealed it off with yellow tape, adding to the already tight security in place around the city since late August.

After putting down the biggest and most sustained demonstrations since 1988 — when a popular uprising failed in an attempt to end 26 years of army-backed rule — the military now looks set to proceed virtually unchallenged with its so-called road map to democracy.

Having pushed through a new constitution that enshrines the military's leading role in politics — engineering a 92 percent "yes" vote in a national referendum in May — the junta, formally known as the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, is preparing to hold a general election in 2010 totally on its own terms.

Provisions of the new constitution would also bar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding any kind of political office in Myanmar, also known as Burma.