The Burmese democracy movement may have died yesterday. Or it could just be regrouping. It was a loose, ragged, frustrating day in Rangoon, a day of baton charges, beatings and many rumours of much worse. I saw soldiers levelling guns, firing volleys of hard rubber pellets, as well as chases and arrests. But something like normality is returning to Burma: which is to say that, just as they have been for much of the past 40 years, people are afraid again. The democracy leaders have already been arrested, the monks are locked down in their monasteries and, yesterday, it was ordinary people who were the most prominent — by their absence.
Appunti di un anonimo italiano
30/9/2007
