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Published on September 27, 2007

 At least five people were reported killed and 100 injured yesterday as Burmese security forces clamped down on protests led by Buddhist monks, while the international community issued stern warnings that the junta would be held accountable for any bloodshed.

About 300 people were arrested, up to half of them monks, as soldiers and police cracked down on tens of thousands of protesters who swept across Burma's commercial hub Rangoon, according to witnesses and diplomats.

Burmese officials told Agence France-Presse that at least three monks were killed, including one who was shot as he tried to wrestle a gun away from a soldier. The two other monks were beaten to death. One layman was dead on arrival at Yangon General Hospi-tal with gunshot wounds, a hospital source said.

Zin Linn, spokesman for the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, said about 30 rounds were fired over the heads of demonstrators gathered near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon.

Witnessed described two monks and a woman dying after being beaten with batons.

Another interesting development was the report of troops in Mandalay defying

an order to shoot over the demonstrators, Zin Linn said.

In one of the strongest statements, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the military government an "illegitimate and repressive regime" and hinted that the "age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over."

Grim warnings and harsh condemnation from the international community were churned out through the day, with US President George W Bush declaring stronger sanctions against the junta.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the UN Security Council would meet in New York today over the deteriorating situation.

Clashes between monk-led protestors and security forces erupted after authorities fired warning shots and tear gas into swollen crowds, while hauling away defiant monks into waiting trucks.

It was the first mass arrests since protests in this military dictatorship erupted last month.

The junta had banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a nighttime curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks across the country in the largest protests in nearly two decades.

As the ninth straight day of unrest began, about 10,000 monks and students along with members of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party set off from Shwedagon to the Sule Pagoda in the heart of Rangoon, but were blocked by military trucks along the route.

Other phalanxes of marchers fanned out into downtown streets with armed security forces attempting to disperse them. There were reports of destruction of property but it was unclear whether this was carried out by the demonstrators or pro-junta thugs, who were seen among the troops and police. Witnesses said an angry mob at the pagoda burned two police motorcycles.

"It's scary here. They will kill us, monks and nuns. Maybe we should go back to normal life as before," said a young nun, her back pressed against the back of a building near the scenes of chaos. But a student at a roadside watching the arrival of the demonstrators said, "If they are brave, we must be brave. They risk their lives for us."

The two asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals.

Other protesters carried flags emblazoned with the fighting peacock, a key symbol of the democracy movement in Burma.

A branch of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy exiled in Thailand said 300 people had been arrested in Rangoon, most of them in a western suburb. The number could not be independently confirmed.

Soldiers with assault rifles had earlier blocked all four major entrances to the soaring pagoda, one of the most sacred in Burma, and sealed other flash points of anti-government protests.

A comedian famed for his anti-government gibes became the first well-known activist rounded up following the protests.

Zarganar, who uses only one name, was taken from his home overnight by authorities. His family said yesterday they were told he had been "called in for temporary questioning".

Burmese leaders warned monks to stop the protests after some 100,000 people joined marches in Rangoon on Monday in the largest anti-government demonstrations since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising was violently suppressed.

The demonstrations started on August 19 after the government hiked fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the repressive military rule that has gripped the country since 1962.

Associated Press reported out of Mandalay, Burma's second largest city, that more than 800 monks, nuns and laymen played a cat-and-mouse game with some 100 soldiers who tried to stop them marching from the Mahamuni Paya Pagoda, which they had tried to enter earlier.

"We are so afraid, the soldiers are ready to fire on civilians at any time," a man near the pagoda said, also asking that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.

Agencies, The Nation