Blogger Niknayman [1] has a list of names and affiliations [2]of over 300 monks and civilians who have been arrested by the Myanmar Military Regime. Many are from the National League of Democracy [3], the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Newspapers across Asia are putting the number of detained people [4] at 1500. Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norwegian organization reports [5]that the number of arrested is much higher at over 2000. Death toll is rumoured to be in the hundreds, though the Myanmar Junta refuses to confirm the official number.
Democratic Voice of Burma is quoting this announcement from Ko Sein Lin [6], a 1988 Generation [7] worker. In 1988, there was a similar protest against the Myanmar Junta, led mostly by the students. These protests were brutally crushed by the Junta and over 3000 people were thought to have been killed and many more tortured.
Ko Sein Lin urges the rest of the workers to join in the protest against the Myanmar Junta:
Only the citizens of Myanmar should be the Mother and the Father of the country. (The Myanmar Junta has repeatedly tried to brainwash the citizens by trying to elevate the army's status as that of being the parents of the country.)
During the “Sangha's heroic act of peaceful defiance against the Junta”:
1) Many monks, students and civilians have been ruthlessly killed, beaten and tortured by the evil Junta, in a bid to crackdown on the protests. We workers from the 1988 generation vehemently oppose these acts of violence.
2) We urge the workers in the government sector and also those in the public companies to look upon the flag of the Sangha (monks) and to be united as one and we also urge the founders and CEOs of the public and private companies to support the workers’ unity.
3) We, 88 Generation workers would like to announce that we will unite with the citizens of Myanmar, in protest against the evil Myanmar Junta and will join in the fight against the military regime, until they are wiped out.
The citizens of Myanmar should study the legendary history of Myanmar (where we have been victorious) and be prepared to fight as one, even if there were to be bloodshed. [author's note: this sentence was especially difficult to translate as it was a Myanmar idiom that does not exist in English but yours truly has tried her best to convey the meaning behind it]
We would like to request that all workers cease work and to join in the protest against the evil Junta.
-Workers from the 88 Generation