Eleven Days ... and counting

Fergus Nicholl of the BBC this morning: "It's now quite clear that he was deliberately shot, in cold blood, by a soldier, as he lay on the ground." He is a Japanese journalist - Kenji Nagai of APF - who was filming the violence in Rangoon.

It shouldn't matter that a foreign journalist was shot. At least eight Burmese citizens were killed yesterday, another on Wednesday, and many more were injured. But it's always (still) shocking to me when a journalist is murdered - and this was murder, not merely a journalist caught in the cross fire - err. well. no "cross" fire in Burma, is there? - of the story he was covering.

The real story here, though, is the continuing courage of the Burmese people. It's true that the violence against the monks, the raids on monasteries and the assaults on and arrests of monks, and the blockades of monasteries to prevent the monks from joining, let alone leading, the marches, has thrown a chill into the crowds. The cutting off of the country's internet connection - belated, as if SLORC couldn't quite grasp the scope of the technology - is probably meant to shut the world out once again, but (I hope) it's too late. There are still bloggers passing on news, and photos and phone calls are still getting out.

But the chill hasn't stopped them. What all the calls are saying this morning is that the marching goes on. So, too, does the shooting.

The UN is sending an envoy, and SLORC (the name sounds so serial-movie evil, doesn't it?) has actually agreed to allow Ibrahim Gambari to come into the country. This is a good sign; perhaps the international outcry is having an effect on them.