Rice: U.S. to raise Myanmar protests at U.N.

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The Bush administration will try to rally support for pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar during the U.N. General Assembly session this week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Demonstrations against the ruling military junta in Myanmar, formerly Burma, continued through the weekend as thousands of Buddhist monks, nuns and political activists marched in support of reformist leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Sunday, police finally pushed hundreds of demonstrators back from the home where Suu Kyi has been under house arrest off and on for nearly two decades.

Speaking before a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Rice said President Bush would raise the issue with fellow world leaders during this week's conference at the United Nations.

"The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve a life to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does," Rice said. "The brutality of this regime is well known. And so we will be speaking about that, and I think the president will be speaking about it with many of his colleagues."

Myanmar has been under military rule since the 1960s. An opposition movement led by Suu Kyi's Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won general elections in 1990, but the military refused to honor the results.

A small but persistent protest movement against the regime began in August after the government hiked fuel prices. Authorities have arrested several hundred protesters, but demonstrations led by Buddhist monks have gone largely unchallenged by the military, which is aware that any mistreatment of monks could ignite public outrage. E-mail to a friend

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