Myanmar junta arrests key activist after manhunt

Myanmar's military junta arrested a key social activist and organiser of a rare series of fuel price protests yesterday after a manhunt across Yangon for the few dissidents to have evaded a four-day crackdown.

Htin Kyaw, who has been detained three times this year for demonstrating against falling living standards in the former Burma, shouted anti-junta slogans with another man for three minutes before being seized, witnesses said.

The pair were beaten as they were dragged away by men in civilian clothes, they added. Police and pro-junta gangs from the feared Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) had been stopping cars and checking bus, railway and ferry terminals across the former capital in one of the harshest crackdowns in years.

Passengers were ordered out of vehicles to have their papers checked against photographs of Htin Kyaw and Htay Kywe, a still influential leader of a 1988 student uprising who remains at large.

Tightening their grip further after a week of rare public protests, the generals also enforced security laws requiring people to register any guests with the authorities.

The Burmese-language services of the BBC, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America had carried an interview with Htin Kyaw on Friday night in which he said he was secretly organising a big demonstration and urged students and Buddhist monks to join in.

In 1988, Yangon's universities and monasteries were the focal points for what became a nationwide uprising against decades of military rule. After several days of clashes, the army moved in to crush the demonstrations, killing 3,000 people.

Despite boiling discontent this week over shock fuel price hikes, analysts say another 1988-style uprising is unlikely, not least because universities have been moved outside the city and civil servants are now in a new capital far to the north.