Monk-led protest against Myanmar generals' regime now under heavy assault

Last week, Buddhist monks led a protest against the dictatorial regime of Myanmar's generals.

But, according to Canada's Globe and Mail:

RANGOON -- Protesters who have crowded the streets of Myanmar's major city of Rangoon for days began to flinch in the face of a harsh military crackdown yesterday, turning out in smaller numbers - unaccompanied by the country's Buddhist monks, who have been barricaded in their monasteries or taken into custody.

Also

The organization said that all cyber-cafés in Rangoon (also known as Yangon) were closed and that the military was persecuting journalists who continued to work despite the difficult conditions.

The regime has also ordered Christians to be wiped out, apparently.

Further to the "Goons in Rangoon" news, David Warren offers context in the Ottawa Citizen,

Looking, through the dusk screen of the media, at the events in Burma, one
feels a cold and pointless rage. The vicious regime that has long enslaved that country is again winning a struggle in which they have all the weapons.

With the "subtle, malign cunning" (I am quoting Kenneth Denby, writing bravely for the Times of London, from Rangoon) that is possible only to a cat with a cornered mouse, the regime has watched the nation's Buddhist monks lead the people onto the streets. It allowed them nine days to vent their grievances, and is now cutting them down.

But the cutting down has been done with much greater efficiency than after the last demonstrations on this scale, that began August 8, 1988. Perhaps 3,000 were massacred in the course of snuffing out the flame of liberty on that occasion. In this latest reprisal of government against people, it seems only a few dozen have been killed -- including the Japanese press photographer, Kenji Nagai, shot down in cold blood to send a message to the other foreign reporters.

In recent history, however, the "monks" tend to win.

BUT this shows us that victory is a long way off.