YANGON—Burma's junta deployed riot police and fire trucks at potential flashpoints in Yangon on Friday to prevent pro-democracy protests on the 60th anniversary of independence from Britain. (Burma is called "Myanmar" by the military rulers.)
Riot police took up positions outside the former capital's City Hall and the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas—all key locations in mass anti-junta protests that erupted in September.
One government official, who did not want to be named, said local authorities had also been ordered to prepare gangs of "Swan-Arr-Shin", or "Masters of Force", thugs in case pro-democracy activists tried to demonstrate.
The junta, the latest face of 45 years of army rule in the former Burma, limited its celebrations to a military ceremony in the remote new capital, Naypyidaw, and a broadcast message from junta supremo Than Shwe.
Repeating an oft-touted slogan, the 75-year-old Senior General urged Myanmar's 53 million people to "make a firm resolve to build a new, peaceful, modern and developed discipline flourishing nation".
He made no mention of any dialogue with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won an election landslide in 1990 only to be denied power by the army. The Nobel laureate has been in prison or under house arrest for most the interim.
Her father General Aung San is generally acknowledged as the father of independence.
At the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD), about 350 people ranging from party faithful to Western diplomats held their own separate ceremony under the watchful gaze of secret police.
After killing at least 31 people in its suppression of the September protests, the junta is under unprecedented international pressure to talk to Suu Kyi about political reform and move towards restoring a modicum of civilian rule.
"We have not given up on the chance of dialogue," party spokesman Nyan Win said. "We do hope dialogue takes place and national reconciliation emerges in 2008. We want 2008 to be the year of reconciliation."
The junta appointed Labour Minister Aung Kyi to hold talks with Suu Kyi after September's violence. They held three meetings, details of which have not been disclosed.
Washington called on the junta to release Suu Kyi and conduct a meaningful dialogue with the opposition.
"President Bush and I ask all nations to join in condemning the military junta for its shameful abuses of basic human rights," said first lady Laura Bush in a statement issued by her office.
"We urge the regime to fulfill its promises to the United Nations Security Council, and to take more than token steps toward meaningful dialogue with Burma's opposition. General Than Shwe must release Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratic leaders, so they can begin the process of national reconciliation," the statement said.
Myanmar was one of Asia's brightest prospects when it won independence from Britain in 1948. However, its economy has stagnated under four decades of military rule and a disastrous attempt at home-grown socialism.
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