The day Burma was silenced - Times Online

The day Burma was silenced - Times Online: "In the Mwe Kya Kan pagoda in the South Okkala district of Rangoon, it began at 2am, but seven hours later the evidence was plain to see – a dozen thick patches of congealing blood and human tissue splashed about the yard. The windows of the monks’ dormitories were smashed jaggedly by the impact of rubber bullets – hard, round spheres fired from green cartridges that the monks had carefully gathered up and put on display."

“Like most people, they thought that it sucks,” he told me. “But not for the usual reason. Burmese wanted to know why George Bush hasn’t invaded their country yet.”

"A boy named Raphael came up to practise his English, as the crowd screamed at the soldiers, and asked for my address so that he could visit me one day. A very small and old but irrepressibly vigorous white-haired man took my hand and led me to safety when he thought that I was too close to the trouble. “I am a teacher,” he said proudly. “PhD!”

Small, human encounters – and yet in these dark circumstances they become almost unbearably poignant. They are based on a very questionable assumption: that the people of Burma are going to be saved."