China breaks silence on Myanmar crisis

China, Myanmar's closest ally, has asked the military regime to put an end to the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

After a telephonic conversation with his UK counterpart Gordon Brown, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Beijing hoped peace would return to Myanmar quickly.

The remarks came as UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is in Myanmar hoping to hold talks with the military rulers.

In a statement, the Chinese PM said, ''China hopes all parties concerned in (Myanmar) show restraint, resume stability through peaceful means as soon as possible, promote domestic reconciliation and achieve democracy and development.''

Meanwhile, die-hard protesters waved the peacock flag of the crushed pro-democracy movement on a solitary march through the eerily quiet streets of Myanmar's largest city, where many dissidents said they were resigned to defeat without international intervention.

Housewives and shop owners taunted troops but quickly disappeared into alleyways on Saturday.

According to diplomats briefed by witnesses, residents of three neighborhoods blocked soldiers from entering the monasteries in a crackdown on Buddhist monks, who led the largest in a month of demonstrations.

The soldiers left threatening to return with reinforcements.

UN envoy

The top UN envoy on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, arrived in the country but many protesters said they were nonetheless seeing a repeat of the global reaction to a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, when the world stood by as protesters were gunned down in the streets.

''Gambari is coming, but I don't think it will make much of a difference,'' said one hotel worker, who like other residents asked not to be named, fearing retaliation. ''We have to find a solution ourselves.''

Soldiers and police were posted on almost all corners in the cities of Yangon and Mandalay. Shopping malls, grocery stores and public parks were closed and few people dared to venture out of their homes.

A young woman who took part in a massive demonstration in Yangon Thursday said she didn't think ''we have any more hope to win.'' She was separated from her boyfriend when police broke up the protest by firing into crowds and has not seen him since.

''The monks are the ones who give us courage,'' she said. Most of the clerics are now besieged in their monasteries behind locked gates and barbed wire.

Access to Suu Kyi

Gambari was taken immediately to Naypyitaw, the remote, bunker-like capital where the country's military leaders are based.

The White House urged the junta to allow him to have access to Aung San Suu Kyi - the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is under house arrest - and ordinary Myanmar residents.

The demonstrations began last month as people angry over massive fuel price hikes took to the streets and then mushroomed into the tens of thousands after the monks began marching.

The junta, which has a long history of snuffing out dissent, started cracking down on Wednesday, when the first of at least 10 deaths was reported, and then let loose on Thursday, shooting into a crowd of protesters and clubbing them with batons.

The crackdown triggered an unprecedented verbal flaying of Myanmar's generals from almost every corner of the world - even some criticism from No 1 ally China.

But little else that might stay the junta's heavy hand is seen in the foreseeable future.

The United Nations has compiled a lengthy record of failure in trying to broker reconciliation between the junta and Suu Kyi.

Gambari has been snubbed and sometimes barred from entry by the ruling State Peace and Development Council, as the ruling junta is formally known.

The United States, Japan and others have turned a hopeful eye on China - Myanmar's biggest trading partner - as the most likely outside catalyst for change.

''Unless and until Beijing, Delhi and Moscow stand in unison in pressuring the SPDC for change, little will change,'' says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

As governments heap criticism on the junta, Myanmar and foreign activists continue to call for concrete, urgent action. (With AP Inputs)

Source: www.ndtv.com