Burma Burning

The Associated Press is reporting up to five people have been killed in a violent government crackdown on dissidents in Burma. The military junta is apparently going to use as much force as they want to stop protests.

YANGON, Myanmar - Security forces shot and wounded three people, and beat and dragged away dozens of Buddhist monks Wednesday in the most violent crackdown against the protests that began last month, witnesses said. About 300 monks and activists were arrested, dissidents said.

Reports from exiled Myanmar journalists and activists in Thailand said security forces had shot and killed as many as five people in Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon. The reports could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press.

The U.N. Security Council will meet later Wednesday to discuss Myanmar, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told French reporters.

Witnesses in Yangon known to the AP said they had seen two women and one young man with gunshot wounds in the chaotic confrontations.

Zin Linn, information minister for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Myanmar's self-styled government-in-exile, said at least five monks were killed, while an organization of exiled political activists in Thailand, the National League for Democracy-Liberated Area said three monks had been confirmed dead, and about 17 wounded.

Exiled Myanmar media reported similar figures, citing witnesses.

A Norway-based dissident radio station, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said that one monk was killed and several injured in clashes in downtown Yangon.

Agam, bogging from Thailand, has video and photos from the crackdown. It looks pretty bad. He's not impressed with the UN response, either:

President Bush told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday that the United States would impose intensified and targeted sanctions against Burma's military rulers, their families and financial backers.

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear," he told the UN General Assembly.

"The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people's desire for freedom is unmistakable."

Unmistakable is right. Yet it seems that the United Nations are not quite united enough to send an unmistakable message to the thugs who oppress 50 million Burmese. The thugs are sending their own unmistakable message as their trucks filled with troops in full battle gear rumble through the streets to take up positions across Rangoon.

It is a very bad day in Burma.