Word: shwedagon
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...WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26 The eastern gate of the Shwedagon is where thousands of monks usually exit to start their march into downtown Rangoon. But today the gate is locked and guarded by soldiers and riot police. They are confronted by hundreds of angry monks and students. It is a little after noon, and the battle for Shwedagon is about to begin...
They pour out of the Shwedagon, an immense golden pagoda that is Burma's most revered Buddhist monument, two miles north of downtown Rangoon. The monks form an unbroken, mile-long column--barefoot, chanting their haunting mantras, clutching pictures of the Buddha, their robes drenched with the late-monsoon rains. They walk briskly, stopping briefly to pray when they reach Sule Pagoda. Then they're off again, coursing through the city streets in a solid stream of red and orange, like blood vessels giving life to an oxygen-starved body. Their effect on Rangoon's residents is electrifying. At first...
...Pagoda in the Shwedagon's shadow, Aung Way, a poet and '88 stalwart jailed three times for his political views, presses into my hand a poem, which I shove into my pocket. Some of the monks chew betel nut, which makes their mouths froth alarmingly with bloodred saliva. The oldest monk, who is 49 and holds a Burmese translation of Francis Fukuyama's The Great Disruption, says the monks have three demands: "Release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners; begin a process of national reconciliation; lower the prices of daily commodities...
...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...
...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...