Myanmar's Monks Have "Disappeared"

With the usual caveat that anything in the Daily Mail should be read with a grain of salt, I want to pass on that said newspaper is reporting that the violence in Myanmar has escalated significantly, based on the account of a former intelligence officer for the ruling junta, who says he was ordered to take part in a massacre of monks and claims: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies [have been dumped in the jungle and] can be counted in several thousand."

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

The Norway-based dissident news organization, the Democratic Voice of Burma, estimates that 138 people have been killed (which is significantly more than the junta says, and significantly less than suggested by the former junta official) but that thousands are indeed being detained.

"Our own estimate is about 6,000 people detained, not killed, but detained," including about 2,400 monks, DVB chief editor Aye Chan Naing said in Oslo.

He said they are being held in at least four places -- the infamous Insein Prison, a pharmaceutical factory, a technical institute and a disused race course.

Meanwhile, the UN envoy is still being stalled by the junta, and it will only be increasingly difficult to get accurate information out of Myanmar, as soldiers continue to go "to hotels in search of foreign journalists operating without permission."