Military Takes Over in Burma : Troops Open Fire on Demonstrators; High Toll Reported

The armed forces seized power Sunday in Burma, and soldiers opened fire on defiant students, Buddhist monks and other protesters in downtown Rangoon early today. Witnesses said casualties were heavy.

Word of the coup came in a 4 p.m. broadcast over Rangoon Radio. Army Chief of Staff Saw Maung declared in a brief statement: “The defense forces have assumed all power in the state.”

The army pledged to impose law and order in the rebellious country and then hold promised multi-party elections.

There was no immediate word on the whereabouts of President Maung Maung, ousted after a month in office marked by constant turmoil.

People Take to Streets

According to reports, the coup itself was bloodless. But shortly after the radio announcement, demonstrators poured into the streets of Rangoon to decry military rule. They felled trees to block military trucks that cruised the capital repeating the takeover announcement over bullhorns. The protesters carried gasoline bombs and heavy slingshots, witnesses said.

Early today, clashes were reported around the main government administrative building, the U.S. Embassy, Sule Pagoda and at a junction leading into the city.

Eyewitnesses from buildings near the U.S. Embassy reported demonstrators being cut down by military fire, while others saw two monks falling to the ground after being hit by bullets around the Sule Pagoda.

Protesters Seize Weapons

Protesters were seen taking weapons from fallen soldiers.

Total casualties could not be estimated. The shooting was reported continuing with local residents dragging the wounded inside their houses.

On Sunday, army trucks loaded with troops drove onto the campus of Rangoon University, a center of the student activist movement, while other soldiers encircled city hall and Rangoon General Hospital, where massive demonstrations have been held over the last two months.

This morning, troops reportedly took over the offices of Rangoon’s newspapers.

The radio broadcast identified Saw Maung, 59, who was also defense minister in the government ousted Sunday, as chairman of the new martial-law regime, the Peace Restoration Committee. He is reputed to be a hard-liner, according to reports from Rangoon, and he becomes the chaotic country’s fourth leader in less than two months.

In Washington, one U.S. source said Saw Maung “has made a career through association with (longtime strongman) Ne Win and is generally regarded as loyal to Ne Win.”

One American official said: “On the surface of it, it would appear that by virtue of this (coup) and the position that Saw Maung has in it, Ne Win is still very much involved in what is going on in Burma.”

Ne Win, who had ruled Burma since a 1962 coup, slipped into the background in July when he resigned as head of the ruling party.

The radio broadcast declared that the military was taking power to “halt deteriorating conditions all over the country and for the sake and interest of the people.” It called on the Burmese to begin organizing political parties “which will accept and practice genuine democracy” to contest the elections.

The military, the broadcast said, will “do its utmost to ease the people’s food, shelter and clothing needs.” A month of protest walkouts have paralyzed the capital and some provincial cities, shutting down transport and communications, drying up food and fuel supplies and blocking government services. Many government offices have been occupied by protesters.

A breakdown of law enforcement has led to the establishment of neighborhood councils and vigilante committees to combat outbreaks of looting.

No Date for Election

Rangoon Radio announced that elections will be held after order is restored. No date was set. But government workers were given until Sept. 26 to return to work or face dismissal.

After an interlude of martial music, Radio Rangoon broadcast a series of other orders from the new regime, including an 8-p.m.-to-4-a.m. curfew and a ban on any gathering of more than five people. Similar regulations had been lifted Aug. 21 by President Maung Maung, who was deposed Sunday.

Last weekend, Maung Maung, a jurist and Burma’s first civilian president in a quarter century of one-party, military-dominated rule, acceded to protesters’ demands for democratic, multi-party elections. There was no immediate word of Maung Maung’s response to Sunday’s military takeover, or news of Ne Win, a former general who ran the country with an iron fist for 26 years.

Nor was there any direct reaction from Burma’s rising opposition politicians who, after long decades of suppression, have won a series of concessions from a faltering government but failed to force it to abdicate power and give way to an interim regime that would conduct free and fair elections. Win Thein, an aide to former Defense Minister Tin Oo, one of the opposition politicians, was quoted by a Western news agency as saying: “The students are sure to reject it. This ruins everything.”

Other than its own announcements, the military’s motives for toppling a government it had apparently supported were not clear, although Maung Maung’s position against continued demonstrations and opposition demands appeared to be weakening daily.

Election Commission Retained

The radio broadcast declared that the elections would be held under direction of a five-man commission appointed by Maung Maung, a condition that student-led protesters and opposition politicians had opposed in continued street demonstrations last week.

Since it was deployed in early August during the violent, 17-day presidency of former Gen. Sein Lwin, Ne Win’s handpicked successor, the army has generally kept to its barracks.

But in Rangoon on Saturday, soldiers fired on demonstrators--wounding three--for the first time since Sein Lwin issued a “shoot to hit” order to quell rising protests. The soldiers surrendered to Buddhist monks and student leaders who disguised them as protesters and led them through an angry crowd demanding, literally, their heads.

On Aug. 8 and 9, more than 100 unarmed demonstrators were killed by the military, according to the government count, and up to 1,000 by diplomatic reports. Sein Lwin resigned three days later.

The military has been the center of power in Burma ever since the country won independence from Britain in 1948.

Under Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Program Party, retired military officers were given top Cabinet posts and assigned to run the state enterprises of socialist Burma. By most accounts, at least 70% of Burma’s civil servants are former military men.

A Disastrous Policy

It has proved a disastrous policy for the resource-rich country of 38 million. Inept management by the former generals and colonels under Ne Win’s own erratic, isolationist direction has left Burma an impoverished nation.

The announcement of the martial-law command named 18 other military officers, including leaders of the army, navy and air force. Times staff writer John M. Broder, in Washington, contributed to this story.