Security forces shot and wounded three people, and beat and dragged away dozens of Buddhist monks on Wednesday in the most violent crackdown against the protests that began last month, witnesses said. About 300 monks and activists were arrested, dissidents said. Reports from exiled Myanmar journalists and activists in Thailand said security forces had shot and killed as many as five people in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.
Earlier, security forces fired warning shots and tear gas canisters while beating monks and hauling others away in trucks as authorities tried to stop anti-government demonstrations, the first mass arrests since protests erupted last month.

About 300 monks and activists were arrested across Yangon, according to an exile dissident group, and reporters saw a number of monks — who are highly revered in Myanmar — being dragged into trucks. A Norway-based dissident radio station, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said that one monk was killed and several injured in clashes in downtown Yangon. The death could not be confirmed by other sources.“There have been lots of clashes in different places between the demonstrators and the riot police and the troops. The troops opened fire into the crowd, and they also used tear gas and some Buddhist monks have been beaten up,” said Aye Chan Naing, the station’s editor, citing reports from his reporters in Yangon, who were trying to confirm reports of three other monks killed.

The junta had banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a nighttime curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks in Yangon and other areas of the country, including the biggest protests in nearly two decades. A march toward the centre of Yangon followed the tense confrontation at the city’s famed Shwedagon Pagoda between the protesters and riot police.

“It’s scary here. They will kill us, monks and nuns. Maybe we should go back to normal life as before,” said a teenage nun, her back pressed against the back of a building near the scenes of chaos. But a student at a roadside watching the arrival of the demonstrators said, “If they are brave, we must be brave. They risk their lives for us.” Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals. The latest developments could further alienate already isolated Myanmar from the international community and put pressure on China, Myanmar’s top economic and diplomatic supporter, which is keen to burnish its international image before next year’s Olympics in Beijing.

But if the junta backs down, it risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters, which could escalate the tension. When faced with a similar crisis in 1988, the government harshly put down a student-led democracy uprising. Security forces fired into crowds of peaceful demonstrators and killed thousands, traumatising the nation.

The potential for a violent crackdown already had aroused international concern, with pleas for the junta to deal peacefully with the situation coming from government and religious leaders worldwide. They included the Dalai Lama and South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Myanmar Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Myanmar, or Burma, and urged the military regime  to be restrained in reacting to protests.