Word: pagoda
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...monks and students fight back, and soon there is the unmistakable crackle of live ammunition - the soldiers are shooting above our heads. The monks dress their wounds and begin their march downtown. Trucks full of soldiers pursue them, watched from the pavement by eerily silent crowds. Near Sule Pagoda, trucks are jeered and pelted with rocks, and the soldiers again open fire over the protesters' heads. But as dusk approaches, the crowds disperse. The shops have been shuttered all afternoon, and the pavement teashops for which Rangoon is famous vanish. Nobody wants to be out on the streets after dark...
...about 1 p.m. on Sept. 27, and I am wedged among thousands of pro-democracy protesters near the golden-domed Sule Pagoda in downtown Rangoon. Facing us are hundreds of soldiers and riot police, who look on edge as they finger their assault rifles. The protesters, mostly ordinary Burmese clad in sarongs and sandals, appear undaunted, even jubilant. Defiantly, they chant a Buddhist mantra whose melody will haunt me for days...
...Then the violence began, with at least two monks reported killed. As an eyewitness at Rangoon's best-known landmark, the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, tells it, the authorities had locked the famous monument's gates to prevent the monks from gathering. Security forces guarded the entrances. A little after noon, hundreds of monks, students and other Rangoon residents approached the police, sat on the road and began to pray. The troops responded quickly, pulling monks from the crowd and striking both clerics and ordinary citizens with canes. Several smoke bombs exploded, and the riot police charged. Some protestors fought back...
...protesters regrouped, though, and surged forward again. Minutes later, a tear-gas canister arced through the air toward the pagoda's eastern entrance. The monks retreated, many still armed with clubs of scavenged wood, one brandishing a riot shield he had snatched from the police. Suddenly, there was an enormous explosion: a clap of thunder. The demonstrators applauded this sign of cosmic solidarity. One monk raised his hands to the heavens, shouting "The rain is coming! The soldiers will be struck by lightning!" Nearby, a woman responded, "Lightning is not enough. They deserve more." A cheer went up with each...
...Despite the clash at Shwedagon, the monks continued on, their fervor broadcast over loudspeakers: "Let us overthrow the government." By early afternoon, the demonstrators had marched the two miles to the Sule Pagoda, another holy site. Again, the path to the pagoda itself was blocked by hundreds of security forces, many with bayonets fixed. The protestors sat and prayed in front of them. More soldiers armed with rifles arrived, though, and most of the crowd stood up and walked away. Twenty minutes later, the troops opened fire - a 10-second burst above the heads of those marchers who had dared...