U.S. Families Can’t Leave as Million March in Burma : Looting, Shootings Reported

About a million protesters, including Roman Catholic nuns, intelligence officers and blind people, took to the streets today to demand democracy, and vigilantes beheaded three people who tried to poison protesters.

The state radio said security forces fired on a crowd of 500 looters in the suburbs of the capital, wounding 17. The radio also said seven corpses with stab wounds were found floating in Rangoon’s Inya Lake.

A general strike closed the airport, preventing the United States and other embassies from evacuating diplomats’ families.

Crowd of Thousands

Several hundred thousand people surged through the capital. The demonstrators want to bring down the government of President Maung Maung and end 26 years of one-party authoritarian rule.

More demonstrations were planned Friday, with some opposition groups hoping that the general strike could be sustained until the government gives in to demands for a multiparty democracy. A newly formed union of bank employees said all Rangoon banks would be shut down Friday.

More than half a dozen embassies, including the British, planned to evacuate dependents as soon as possible. Diplomats said Japan, the Soviet Union and China sent out dependents and aid experts earlier.

Evacuations of foreign nationals were delayed because the strike at Rangoon Airport forced cancellation of all flights to Bangkok. The American Embassy hoped to start evacuating its 100 dependents, and sources said a special flight may be arranged.

Mostly Peaceful

Today’s march was largely peaceful, but sources said a mob killed two men and a woman who gave poisoned ice water to several demonstrators, including children.

The sources said that after the trio confessed to having been paid $42 each to poison protesters, a mob dragged them outside a monastery, beat them to death and beheaded them, hanging their heads on posts at a major intersection. It was not clear whether any protesters were poisoned.

Senior government officials, uniformed state factory workers, Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns, housewives and a group of 200 blind people joined in the protests. About 200 homosexuals also participated.

Residents said more than 700,000 protesters marched in the central city of Mandalay, 350 miles north of Rangoon, and in Monywa, an important trading town 60 miles northwest of Mandalay. More than 100,000 marched in Moulmein, the Mon state capital 50 miles southeast of Rangoon.

Leaders Proceeding

A Western analyst in Bangkok said that despite the great show of anti-government force, the top leaders appeared to be “going ahead with their own timetable” of holding a special congress Monday to pave the way for a referendum on Burma’s future. He said the powerful military also appeared to be basically intact despite some defections and “wavering.”

“The opposition has been effective in getting people out on the streets but ineffective in moving the government. It just can’t topple it over,” the diplomat said.

Today’s protest was the largest since an estimated 1 million marched in Rangoon on Aug. 24 in the biggest demonstration since the 1962 military coup.

President Maung Maung lifted martial law in Rangoon and curfews nationwide on Aug. 24. He announced that the Burma Socialist Program Party would meet Sept. 12 to consider organizing a referendum on one-party rule.

Maung Maung took power Aug. 19 as the country’s first civilian leader in 26 years. But protesters have rejected the party meeting and demanded immediate formation of an interim government to oversee a transition to democracy.