The Burma Road

The Rule of Lords blog has an extensive gallery of protest photographs contributed by ordinary citizens and a nationwide map showing the frequency and location of the 155 protest incidents which have taken place since August 17.

Bangkok Dazed quotes emails from friends in Myanmar: “One describes the current situation as ‘Very, very tense. Our school is getting closed down starting tomorrow. Don’t know what’s going to happen next.’ Another local said that “Here they started fighting in downtown today. It seems bad. I will write later. I don’t know how long we will have Internet … maybe they will cut soon.”

Burmese blogger Yangon Thu has many high-resolution digital photographs and this comment: “I even admire and love Daw Aung San Suu Kyi so much because she is an advocate for peace. However, I am ashamed to tell you that the more I see pictures of monks being bashed in the head, soldiers mistreating women and children, and other innocent civilians, I am tempted to go out and buy a gun so that I can shoot these cowards who have to use gun power against innocent people.”

Jotman has a running chronology of the military crackdown on the protester.

The BBC says that bloggers are owning the coverage in Burma and is running emails sent from Burma here. But one person warns that bandwidth is being shut off:

Now the military junta is reducing the internet connection bandwidth and we have to wait for a long time to see a page. Security forces block the route of demonstrations. Yesterday night, the junta announced to people in Rangoon and Mandalay not to leave their houses 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM. I think if the junta decides, they will cut off communication such as internet and telephone lines so that no information can be leaked to the outside world.

Burmanet reports that the phone lines of many pro-democracy activists have been cut. Singapore, Bloody Singapore has a roundup of rumors reported by Burmese bloggers. One, A Glimpse of My Life, reported weird rumors that the military is dropping “rain bombs” to cause precipitation. But he reports a few protesters still on the streets and Internet connectivity, while down for about four hours, came back on.

And Laura Bush gives this interview on VOA, “I want to say to the armed guards and to the soldiers: Don’t fire on your people, don’t fire on your neighbors. Join this movement.”