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Armed riot police deployed around Yangon by junta

Hundreds of riot police, armed with assault rifles and tear gas, moved into position at sites in Yangon where protesters staged a bloody, pro-democracy demonstration a month ago yesterday.

The sudden show of force after several weeks of relative quiet in Myanmar's largest city appeared aimed at forestalling any protests to mark the one-month anniversary of a key day in the anti-regime uprising by Buddhist monks, activists and ordinary citizens angry at the country's entrenched junta.

Security was especially tight at the eastern gate of the famed Shwedagon pagoda where monks were beaten as police broke up a protest on Sept. 26. Barbed wire was erected around the area while police and pro-junta thugs also took up positions near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of the city and other sites of earlier protests.

Yesterday also marked the end of the Lent period, an important Buddhist holiday when monks can leave their monasteries to travel after several months of monsoon season retreats.

There were no immediate signs that any public protests would take place, but thousands of pilgrims thronged to the Shwedagon and other pagodas.

A Myanmar reporter who tried to take a photo of the pilgrims climbing up the eastern gate of the Shwedagon was immediately surrounded by nearly a dozen riot police and a police officer confiscated the flash card from the camera.

The reappearance of heavy security in Yangon came a day after detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a newly appointed government official, part of a UN-brokered attempt to nudge her and the junta toward reconciliation.

"I hope this is the beginning of the [reconciliation] process," said Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) yesterday.

But some residents and Western diplomats remained skeptical, noting that other such meetings had produced nothing and seemed merely aimed at easing international pressure on the junta. One European diplomat called the one-hour meeting "a public relations exercise."

Meanwhile, at least 70 people detained by the junta -- including 50 members of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD -- have been released, Nyan Win said yesterday.

The detainees were released on Thursday from Insein Prison in Yangon but Nyan Win said at least 250 NLD members were still detained.

The government has said previously that it had detained about 3,000 suspected dissidents in connection with last month's pro-democracy demonstrations but had released most of them.
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