Myanmar crackdown remembered

The people of Myanmar are marking exactly 20 years since a military crackdown on a student-led democracy uprising left an estimated 3,000 dead.

But after last year's large-scale rallies that were also brutally crushed, the ruling generals were taking no chances on Friday and the only protests were likely to be outside the country.

Extra police and government supporters that critics call thugs, have been stationed at strategic points and Buddhist monasteries around Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Most of the surviving leaders of the seven-month long 1988 uprising - the biggest challenge to army rule stretching back to 1962 - were arrested last August at the start of fuel-price protests that grew into anti-government demonstrations.

They remain behind bars along with an estimated 1,100 political prisoners.

Protests

Outside the South-East Asian nation, however, human rights groups and activists who fled the crackdown on the 1988 protests planned demonstrations at Myanmar and Chinese embassies.