The United States has called on Myanmar’s generals to also allow Ibrahim Gambari to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy icon who has been held under house arrest for most of the past 18 years.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon dispatched the Nigerian-born Gambari to broker negotiations between the isolated military regime and its pro democracy opponents, who have mounted two weeks of nationwide mass rallies.

A violent crackdown to end the demonstrations — which has claimed at least 13 lives since Wednesday — appeared to have largely succeeded in deterring anti-government campaigners from returning to the streets.

In two clashes Saturday, troops beat and dispersed protesters in Yangon, but for the most part the country’s largest city was eerily quiet with security forces outnumbering demonstrators and locking down Buddhist monasteries.

At Bogyoke Aung San market, a major tourist destination also known as Scott’s Market, warning shots were fired to disperse about 500 anti-government demonstrators, and an unknown number were arrested, witnesses said.

Nearby at the Pansoedan bridge, another 100 protesters gathered, but when they started to clap their hands a squad of about 50 security forces baton-charged them and arrested about five, witnesses said.

“They beat people so badly,” said one Yangon resident who witnessed the scene. “I wonder how these people can bear it.”

The crackdown, in which hundreds have been arrested, had already succeeded in reducing the intensity of the protests Friday, when only about 10,000 turned out in Yangon compared with up to 100,000 at the height of the rallies.

However, in the central city of Pakokku, witnesses said that Buddhist monks led thousands of protesters Saturday in a peaceful two-hour march which appeared to have been mounted with the approval of local authorities.

“About 1,000 monks led the protest, and they were followed by more people on bicycles and motorbikes,” said a witness.

The recent wave of protests has been Myanmar’s biggest since an uprising in 1988 that ended with troops killing some 3,000 people, and the regime’s bloody response this week has drawn outrage from around the world.

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