Myanmar troops tell protesters to go home or be shot
YANGON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Crowds of protesters in central Yangon scattered on Thursday after more then 200 soldiers and police marched through the streets with loudspeakers, ordering people to go home or risk being shot, a witness said.
Earlier, one protester fell after shots were fired, witnesses said. It was not known if he was alive or dead orwhether he had been hit by bullets or smoke bomb canisters fired by police near the Sule Pagoda, end-point of more than a week of marches.
After telling people to clear the area in 10 minutes, the soldiers advanced up the street away from the pagoda, theirrifles at their sides. Police banged their rattan riot shields with batons.
"It's a terrifying noise," one witness said.
Apart from the odd terrified pedestrian scurrying for cover, a crowd of 100 people stood on the road 500 metres(yards) from the soldiers, who halted at a road junction near the central railway station. A tense stand-off ensued.
In chaotic scenes in the city centre, protesters also stopped a truck carrying bricks and used them to pelt a policepost near the Traders Hotel.
Pro-junta civilian gangs were also deployed in the heart of the former capital, a city of five million people.
Witnesses told Reuters that tear gas and warning shots were fired in clashes between crowds and soldiers and riot police who had raided some monasteries in South Okkalapa in the former Burma's remote northeast.
Earlier, police and soldiers charged a chanting crowd in downtown Yangon, firing warning shots and what appeared to smoke bombs. One man collapsed when the shots were fired. It was not known if he was dead or alive.
Witnesses said they had seen a foreigner being carried away by four policemen. It is unclear if he was injured or being arrested. At least three people were hurt. -REUTERS


knew about this this morning on bus watching news. . can't help feeling sad