Junta back in control

YANGON, Saturday (AFP) - A United Nations special envoy flew to Myanmar today, as the ruling junta deployed an overwhelming security presence in the nation's biggest city in a campaign to choke off mass protests.UN chief Ban Ki-moon has dispatched Ibrahim Gambari to broker talks between the military and its pro-democracy opponents, who have mounted two weeks of mass nationwide rallies.

The United States has called on the generals who run Myanmar to allow him to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy icon and opposition leader who is being held under house arrest. Gambari said before leaving Singapore that he was looking forward to “a very fruitful visit” and that he expected to “meet all the people that I need to meet”.

On the fourth day of a violent operation to close down the protests, which has seen at least 13 people killed, troop numbers were visibly higher in Yangon today, leaving the city tense and largely deserted, witnesses said.

Troops armed with assault rifles and riot police locked down the eerily quiet city centre, surrounded Buddhist monasteries in outlying areas, and frisked many of those residents who dared to venture onto the streets, they told AFP. Central Yangon remained quiet in the early afternoon, when the rallies usually start gathering, and the intense security presence looked to have succeeded in suppressing the protests so far.

The crackdown had already succeeded in reducing the intensity of the protests Friday, when only about 10,000 turned out in Yangon compared to tens of thousands in the previous days. US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday led international condemnation of the violence, and renewed pleas to the Myanmar junta to make a “peaceful transition to democracy”.

Gambari's itinerary has not been released, but on previous visits he has met with regime leader Senior General Than Shwe, and once with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 18 years.“We have called on the Burmese to allow him to be able to meet with anyone he wants to meet -- the military leaders, the religious leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Friday.

Troops in Yangon today appeared to have been reinforced with two Yangon-based army divisions which have spearheaded the crackdown having been joined by 66 Division from Pago which lies northeast of the city. Yangon's main pagodas, which have been rallying points for the protests, remained off-limits and 20 military trucks were stationed at Sule Pagoda in the city centre.

Only a few people ventured onto the streets, markets were closed, and a handful of private cars and taxis were on the roads, witnesses said. The Buddhist monks who initially led the protests, turning out on the streets in their thousands, were nowhere to be seen after a brutal campaign of arrests, bashings and monastery raids which has shocked the country.

Troops have blockaded many big monasteries, including those in the religious capital of Mandalay in central Myanmar, and monks are only allowed to move around in small groups. A Western diplomat based in Yangon said Saturday there were reports of divisions within the military on how to handle the crisis in Mandalay, home to the majority of Myanmar's 400,000 monks.

In the past there have been regular reports of tensions at the highest levels of the junta, particularly between Than Shwe and the regime's number two Maung Aye. On Friday, diplomats said they had received information from several sources about “acts of insubordination” within the army and that some soldiers were willing to take the side of demonstrators.

Global pressure on the Myanmar regime has mounted in recent days as images of gunfire, baton charges and tear gas used against demonstrators has galvanised world opinion. The State Department announced more than three dozen additional government and military officials and their families would be barred from traveling to the United States.

Myanmar's main Internet connection was cut Friday, severely reducing the flow of video, photos and first-hand reports of the violence which helped inform the world of the crisis in the isolated nation.