YANGON - Myanmar's junta arrested more people on Wednesday hours after the departure of a U.N. envoy who came to the country to try to end a bloody crackdown on protests which sparked international outrage.
At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city and centre of last week's monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.
In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in the devoutly Buddhist country and starting point for the rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken, she said.
"They warned us not to run away as they might be back," she said after people from rows of shophouses were ordered onto the street in the middle of the night and many taken away.
The crackdown continued despite some hopes of progress by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his mission to persuade junta chief Than Shwe to relax his iron grip and open talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he met twice.
Singapore, chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which Myanmar is a member, said it "was encouraged by the access and cooperation given by the Myanmar government to Mr Gambari."
Gambari was in Singapore on Wednesday on his way back to New York but was unlikely to say anything publicly before speaking to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a U.N. official told Reuters.
U.N. sources said he was expected to return to Myanmar in early November.
There were no indications of how his mission and international pressure might change the policies of a junta which seldom heeds outside pressure and rarely admits U.N. officials.
"I don't expect much to come of this. I think the top leadership is so entrenched in their views that it's not going to help," said David Steinberg, a Georgetown University expert on Myanmar.
"They will say they are on the road to democracy and so what do you want anyway?", he added, referring to the junta's "seven-step road to democracy".
The first of the seven steps has been completed with the end of an on-off 14-year national convention which produced guidelines for a constitution that critics say will entrench military rule and exclude Suu Kyi from office.
"NORMALCY RESTORED"
The junta says the monk-led protests -- which filled five city blocks -- were countered with "the least force possible" and Yangon and other cities had returned to normal.
