BY Mehm Oa:According to sources in Rangoon, a combined security force comprised of the Rangoon police and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) soldiers have maintained strict security and baggage checks at Rangoon’s famous Shwedagon Pagoda since the 27th, when the annual “Shwedagon Festival” was held.
The security forces have set up checkpoint stations at each of the 4 entrances to the pagoda; visitors to the pagoda informed IMNA that between 3 and 5 guards man each station and conduct rigorous searches of backpacks and large bags.
“They started this [ the checkpoints] due to the festival, not just the police but also the soldiers were included. They also had guns and wore their uniforms,” said a Rangoon resident who lives in Rangoon Division’s Pahan Township, near Shwedagon Pagoda.
Shwedegon Pagoda is a major point of religious pilgrimage in Burma, and many pilgrims and visitors arrive with large traveling bags and backpacks in tow. Sources informed IMNA that the ongoing, rigorous searching of luggage at each entry to the monument backlogs visitors attempting to enter the pagoda.
“They are still checking people every day at the pagoda, but now if they suspect people with bags, they open the bags and check everything. There are always many people at the Shwedagon Pagoda, they come from different places, all around Burma. Some of them carry big bags and backpacks, and some of them just have handbags” explained a Mon state native studying in Rangoon, who attended the Shwedagon festival on February 27th.
Many of the sources that IMNA spoke to felt that the restrictive security measures taken at Shwedagon Pagoda are merely harbingers of future SPDC attempts to control large gatherings of the Burmese population; many speculated that the Burmese government is striving to prevent to reoccurrence of a unified mass protest like September 2007’s “Saffron Revolution”, before the upcoming 2010 elections.
“I think they are worried that the people [in the crowds at the pagoda] will combine and demonstrate like the monks in 2007 demonstrated, and the people will protest the coming 2010 elections” the Pahan Township resident informed IMNA.
According to a 2010 election observer from Mudon Township, such security measures will only multiply and heighten in intensity in the months preceding the upcoming elections; he predicted that “crowd control” will become a major feature of SPDC pre-elections checks on the Burmese population.
“They are worried the monks will demonstrate again, because in 2007 the monks demonstrated, the monks are a big group. The people and the monks don’t like that the government is holding the 2010 elections, nor did they like the 2008 constitution, and they [the authorities] know that. Tight security will increase, not just at Shwedagon Pagoda, but at every place with big crowds of people,” he explained.
