Leaflets demanding that US and British diplomats stop their "blatant support" for pro-democracy protests in Myanmar were left in front of those countries' embassies yesterday.
Myanmar detained scores of activists and used gangs of hired thugs to suppress a rare wave of protests last month triggered by fuel price hikes of as much as 500 percent.
"We, Myanmar people, are going to punish those Myanmar traitors who rely on foreign countries," said one of several leaflets left in front of the embassies.
"Your blatant support and encouragement toward those scoundrels amounts to insulting the Myanmar people. We demand that such actions be stopped immediately," it said.
The junta, along with the state-controlled press, have frequently accused the US and Britain of colluding with pro-democracy activists in efforts to oust the government. Both nations have imposed economic and political sanctions against the junta because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.
The leaflets left in front of the embassies were copies of handwritten pages and included several poems. All were critical of either the pro-democracy movement or the embassies.
They were signed by unknown groups.
Asked to comment on the letters, Shari Villarosa, the top US diplomat in Myanmar, said: "We support free speech but it's something to which all citizens of the country have the right, and should not be arrested."
She said she would not be surprised if the people who had left the letters had received official encouragement.
On Monday, Myanmar said that a National Convention had finished drawing up guidelines for a new constitution, said to be the first step in a seven-stage "roadmap to democracy."
But US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Tuesday the results "do not represent the will of the Burmese people, nor are they a step toward democracy."
The guidelines guarantee the military 25 percent of the seats in parliament.
They also disqualify presidential candidates who are "entitled to the rights and privileges of a ... foreign country" -- thereby barring Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained head of the country's opposition movement, whose late husband was British.
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