CRANK THE TORQUE:

UN Envoy Meets With Suu Kyi, Junta (AP, 9/30/07)

A U.N. envoy met Sunday with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after meeting with Myanmar's military rulers as he sought a peaceful solution to the government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

The separate talks occurred as thousands of troops locked down Myanmar's largest cities Sunday. Scores of people were arrested overnight, further weakening an uprising that sought to end 45 years of military dictatorship.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, went to the remote bunker-like capital Naypyitaw on Saturday to meet with the junta and stayed overnight, foreign Asian diplomats said.

On Sunday, he returned to Yangon and was whisked to the State Guest House to meet Suu Kyi, who was brought out of house arrest to see the U.N. envoy in what appeared to be an unexpected concession by the junta.

Burma protesters call for help from outside world (Denis D. Gray, 9/30/07, Associated Press)

Watching soldiers firing their guns and beating determined protesters with clubs in the streets of Burma, a distraught man decried the violent crackdown and pleaded for American intervention.

With the streets mostly quiet yesterday after the military's brutal suppression of three days of demonstrations, many protesters were losing hope and falling back on such familiar pleas for help from the outside world.

It's a call made every time the prodemocracy movement has dared stand up against Burma's 45 years of harsh military rule, only to be crushed.

Some of those challenging the regime in the most forceful demonstrations in nearly two decades still hope such help - even in the form of US bombing - may arrive.

About 300 protesters marched down a street in the Chinatown section of Burma's main city, Rangoon, yesterday, waving the peacock-emblazoned flags of the democracy movement. They dispersed when soldiers arrived.

Aung San Suu Kyi has tremendous moral cache which she has to use to put pressure on the West if this rebellion is to go any further.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 30, 2007 9:23 AM