Myanmar junta frees 50 activists

yangon, myanmar -- The military government released 50 members of Myanmar’s pro-democracy party on the same day officials met with the group’s leader in a response to international pressure over the crushing of peaceful demonstrations, a party spokesman said Friday.

Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations special envoy trying to broker a compromise between party leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta, told reporters in Japan that the meeting was a good beginning. “But it’s only the first step, so this should lead to early resumption of talks that will lead to tangible results,” he said.

The junta, meanwhile, deployed hundreds of riot police officers with assault rifles and tear gas in Yangon in an apparent attempt to forestall any protests one month after Myanmar, also known as Burma, began a violent crackdown on demonstrations by Buddhist monks, activists and ordinary citizens.

Security was especially tight at the eastern gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda, where monks were beaten as police broke up a protest Sept. 26. Barbed wire was put up while police and pro-junta militants took up positions near the downtown Sule Pagoda and other sites.

There were no signs of unrest as thousands of pilgrims thronged Shwedagon and other pagodas at the end of the Lent period, a key Buddhist holiday.

The junta is under international pressure to make at least goodwill gestures after halting peaceful demonstrations that began Aug. 19 in the wake of fuel price hikes and grew into a movement for democratic reform.

The government says 10 people were killed when troops fired on protesters and about 3,000 people were arrested, most of them later freed.

Dissident groups put the death toll as high as 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of monks.