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Thousands on Rangoon streets for
- Subject: Thousands on Rangoon streets for
- From: moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 17:42:00
Subject: Thousands on Rangoon streets for Burmese new year
Thousands on Rangoon streets for
Burmese new year
RANGOON, April 14 (AFP) - Thousands of Burmese New Year revellers
took to the streets of Rangoon Monday for the annual four-day
water festival
amid high security in the capital.
Traditional water-throwing festivities went ahead, although the
number of
revellers was down on previous years following anti-Moslem unrest
in March
and a mail bomb attack on the home of a top junta general last week,
observers said.
A witness said armed riot police with bullet proof vests were on
duty behind
the closed gates of the home ministry, where the water-throwing
platform, or
pandal, had been dismantled. There were unconfirmed reports of a
bomb scare
at the ministry last week.
Most government pandals were dismantled days before festivities
for the
Burmese New Year on April 17 began.
Uniformed police manned the few remaining ones and also guarded
the private
pandals of high government officials, witnesses said.
These included the pandal called "Barrack Brats" on Rangoon's
Prome Road,
belonging to the family of former Burmese strongman Ne Win, and
that of
intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, where a hired foreign musical
troop played for
crowds.
While the security did not dampen the spirits of young people on
the streets,
there were none of the heavy traffic usually associated with the
Thingyan water
festival, as many people stayed at home.
"This is especially true of the Moslem community whose younger
people are
usually in the thick of the water-dousing and carousing with the
rest," one
Moslem source said.
Because of fears of renewed religious unrest, young members of
most Moslem
families have stayed in their community mosques since the
festivities started and
will stay out of view until new year comes, he said.
"They sleep there and are fed there and are being kept busy with
Koran
studies," he added.
Last month, mosques and Moslem properties were attacked by Buddhist
monks, after unrest which started in the northern city of
Mandalay spread to
other cities, including Rangoon.
The source said that an Islamic religious festival, which had
coincided with
Burmese New Year's Day on April 17, had been shifted to the
following day.
Moslem leaders had also decided to forego the traditional culling
and feasting
of livestock for "Bakhri Eid" because of religious tension, he added.