YANGON (AP)--The United Nations Monday warned fuel price hikes in Myanmar could worsen the country's precarious economic situation, as dozens of pro- democracy activists resumed their protests against the increase.
Witnesses said about 50 people, wearing white, marched in the bustling township of Bago, some 80 kilometers north of the country's commercial center, Yangon.
Demonstrators shouted slogans calling for lower consumer prices, as plainclothes police watched from a distance without intervening or making arrests, the witnesses said.
The demonstrators dispersed without incident after marching along a busy street in Bago for more than half an hour.
Earlier this month, the military junta increased fuel prices overnight by as much as 500%, by slashing subsidies that had kept domestic oil prices low for years. The hikes resulted in increases in prices of public transport - some since rolled back - and also higher prices for some basic commodities due to higher transport costs.
Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Myanmar, said the price hike will hit most Myanmar families hard, since almost 90% live below or near the poverty line, which he defined as living on US$1 a day.
"It's going to make things more expensive and make it more difficult for people to survive," Petrie told The Associated Press. "It will contribute to the continued deterioration of the standard of living for a significant portion of the population."
Petrie also said the fact that the increase was imposed all at once, rather than phased in over time, showed the regime was "out of touch" with the average citizen.
"It's a policy that has been applied in a draconian matter that doesn't take into account the fact that people lack the reserves necessary to absorb such shocks," he said.
The price hike triggered a number of small, peaceful protests last week, mainly in Yangon. Police subsequently detained at least 65 activists, including several leaders of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement.
Among them was a protest Saturday in Mogok, about 680 kilometers north of Yangon, in an area famous for gemstone mining.
Mogok residents said more than 200 people, including members of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, marched Saturday to protest the fuel price hike and dispersed peacefully without any arrests.
Myanmar's ambassador to the Philippines, Thang Tun, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Myanmar could no longer afford to subsidize fuel so heavily due to steep oil price increases worldwide. He said cutting the subsidies was not a political move.
Myanmar activists have speculated that the government needed to slash the subsidies to remedy a cash shortage. Some analysts said the measure could be a prelude to privatization, or that it may even reflect conflict within the junta - and could be a deliberate attempt to provoke unrest, further stalling the approval of a long-awaited constitution and embarrassing military ruler Gen. Than Shwe.
Myanmar's ruling junta has been widely criticized for human rights violations, including the extended detention of Suu Kyi and more than 1,200 other political prisoners.
Economic dissatisfaction sparked the country's last major upheaval in 1988, when mass demonstrations broke out seeking an end to the military rule that began in 1962.
The army violently subdued those protests. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were killed.
The current protests are nowhere near the scale of those in 1988, and the junta appeared to be taking no chances in trying to clamp down on them.
The military rulers held a general election in 1990, but refused to honor the results when the National League for Democracy won in a landslide.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 08-27-070721ET Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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