Myanmar cracks down on demonstrators

[IDemo]

Exiles report 5 deaths while junta admits one person slain; U.N. to meet

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 10 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar’s ruling junta acknowledged Wednesday that one person was killed and three others injured when its security forces fired guns to suppress an anti-government demonstration in the heart of the country’s biggest city, Yangon.

However, dissident groups said that at least 5 people were killed on the confrontations.

The government announcement on state radio and television was the first official verification that force had been used to suppress a month long series of protests and the first admission that blood had been shed.

Shots were fired after a crowd of 10,000 people, including “so-called monks,” failed to disperse at the city’s Sule Pagoda, the announcement said, adding that police used minimum force.