36 Killed in Burma Protests of Military Rule

Security forces in Burma killed at least 36 demonstrators Tuesday as violent anti-government protests mounted nationwide in the most direct, sustained challenge to more than a quarter-century of military rule.

In the capital of Rangoon, where students marched in defiance of military patrols operating under martial law, five demonstrators were shot to death, the official Radio Rangoon reported. Another 31 were killed in an assault on a police station in Sagaing, 300 miles to the north near Mandalay, according to the late-evening broadcast.

Eyewitnesses said Rangoon has been paralyzed by the continuing conflict, which spread Tuesday to 26 other Burmese towns from Myitkyina in the north to Moulmein in the south. Supplies of food and other necessities are drying up, they added, and it is unsafe to venture into the streets. Most embassies there, including the U.S. Embassy, closed Tuesday.

In Washington, a statement issued by the State Department said: “We deplore the shooting of unarmed demonstrators and believe that non-lethal means should be employed to deal with such demonstrations.”

Rangoon-based foreign diplomats, interviewed by telephone from Bangkok, said the toll from Tuesday’s clashes may be much higher--perhaps as high as 100. The unusually detailed Radio Rangoon report said that 1,451 “looters and disturbance makers” have been arrested, although it was not clear whether the figure included 822 protesters detained Monday.

Several diplomats said the shooting started late Monday, when troops opened fire with shotguns on a crowd of students who ignored demands to disperse.

At daybreak Tuesday, the protests resumed, these diplomats said, as demonstrators surged through the streets and confronted troops at checkpoints. There have been no reports that the students were armed, but eyewitness accounts reaching Bangkok said the streets were littered with rocks.

“The shooting was all one way,” a Rangoon-based diplomat told a British reporter. Another, quoted by the Associated Press, declared: “This is a tragedy. . . . Things are going from bad to worse.”

Tens of thousands of students are demanding the resignation of Sein Lwin, a hard-line, 64-year-old former general who took power two weeks ago as head of state and leader of the Burma Socialist Program Party, the country’s only authorized political party. He replaced the autocratic Ne Win, Burma’s ruler since 1962, who resigned in the wake of six months of political and social turmoil.

Demonstrators also are calling for the release from prison of Aung Gyi, 70, a one-time military associate of Ne Win who has become the government’s sharpest and most influential critic. Opposition leaders had bolstered the student protests by releasing a series of open letters from Aung Gyi, who was arrested July 29, that declared military rule had plunged Burma into the “depths of moral decay.”

More than 200 people have died in clashes since the protests began, according to diplomatic sources.

The Radio Rangoon report announced that at least 55 protesters had been wounded in the capital Tuesday, while in Sagaing, a city usually noted for its Buddhist retreats, 37 were wounded when 5,000 dissidents tried to overrun the police station.

Moving to curb the mounting protests, the government also:

--Placed an 8 p.m.-to-4 a.m. curfew on Rangoon and banned public gatherings of more than five people there.

--Shut all schools nationwide. Burma’s universities have been closed since demonstrations in June.

--Ordered a ban on tourist visas issued by Burmese consulates in Bangkok and Hong Kong.

At the same time, authorities in Rangoon have restricted news coverage of recent developments. Foreign journalists always have been banned from working in Burma but regularly slipped into the country on tourist visas. But all applicants for tourist visas have been interrogated over the last two weeks to prevent reporters from entering the country in any guise.