Myanmar monks free officials after burning cars

YANGON, Sep 6 (Reuters) Several hundred monks in army-run Myanmar held a group of government officials for more than four hours today and torched their cars as anger deepened at last month's shock fuel price rises, a witness said.

Around a dozen officials had gone to the monastery in the town of Pakokku, 600 km (370 miles) northwest of Yangon, to apologise for soldiers firing shots over the heads of protesting monks on yesterday, the witness said.

They had also wanted to ask the abbot of the Mahawithutayama monastery, the town's biggest, to stop monks taking part in the sporadic marches that have broken out against soaring living costs in the former Burma, she added.

However, several hundred young monks locked them inside the monastery and torched four of their cars. A crowd of up to 1,000 people gathered outside the gates and there was no sign of military or police.

''They were allowed to leave at 4 pm (1500 IST),'' one resident told Reuters.

In the first use of the army against two weeks of rare dissent, soldiers had fired the warning shots to halt a protest march of up to 500 monks reciting Buddhist scriptures and waving banners condemning huge fuel price increases.

Hitherto, the military had responded by arresting leading dissidents and sending pro-junta gangs onto the streets of Yangon to break up protests.

Western governments and the United Nations have become increasingly critical of the junta's actions, although China --the general's main trading partner and the closest they have to a friend -- has remained silent.

GROWING TENSIONS Local sources said bus services in and out of the town 80miles away from the second city of Mandalay had been suspended,a sign of the junta trying to contain the protest.

The regime's number two, Vice-Senior General Maung Aye,postponed a trip to Bangladesh on Sept. 10 because of ''domesticsecurity concerns'', according to diplomatic sources.

''From what we heard about the situation in Pakkoku yesterday and today, they need to handle it very carefully,'' one Asian diplomat said.

More than 100 people have been arrested in the crackdown, one of the harshest since the army crushed a nationwide uprising of monks, students and government workers in 1988,when around 3,000 people are thought to have been killed.

The military has been loathe to put soldiers on the streets, perhaps mindful of the 1988 bloodshed, a watershed moment in Myanmar's post-independence history.

Intervening against monks in Pakokku is particularly risky for the junta because of its proximity to Mandalay, the religious heart of a devoutly Buddhist nation and home to 300,000 monks.

Historically, monasteries have played a major role in revolts, both in 1988 and against colonial master Britain.

A resident of Mandalay said the atmosphere in the town was very tense. News reports from dissident organisations suggest the generals who first seized power in 1962 have been pressing the heads of Mandalay's monasteries not to become involved.

''They seem to be more nervous. Once the monks in Mandalay start to rise, they won't be able to control it,'' a Yangon-based politician said this week.

REUTERS JK AS1800