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UN warns fuel price hikes could worsen Burma's economic situation
The Star, Malaysia
RANGOON (AP) - The United Nations warned that fuel price hikes in Burma could worsen the dire economic situation for many people in the military-ruled country, as dozens of pro-democracy activists resumed defiant protests against the increase.
Witnesses said about 50 people, wearing white, marched Monday in the bustling township of Pegu, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the country's commercial center, Rangoon.
Demonstrators shouted slogans calling for lower consumer prices, as plainclothes police watched from a distance, witnesses said.
The demonstrators dispersed after about half an hour, they said.
Earlier this month, the military junta increased fuel prices by as much as 500 percent, by slashing subsidies that had kept domestic oil prices low for years. The new prices caused public transport fees to soar -- although some have since been rolled back -- and subsequently triggered increases for some basic commodities.
Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Burma, said the price hike will hit most Burmese families hard, since almost 90 percent live below or near the poverty line, which he defined as living on US$1 (euro.73) a day.
"It's going to make things more expensive and make it more difficult for people to survive,'' Petrie told The Associated Press. Petrie also said the fact the increase was imposed at once, rather than in phases, 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 Rangoon. Police detained at least 65 activists, including several leaders of Burma's pro-democracy movement.
Burma's ambassador to the Philippines, Thang Tun, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Burma could no longer afford to pay out heavy fuel subsides due to steep oil prices worldwide.
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.
Burma's ruling junta has been widely criticized for human rights violations, including the extended detention of Nobel laureat Aung San 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.
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.
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