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Burma's brutal military junta could always count on a sympathetic hearing from Razali Ismail. As the U.N.'s special envoy to Burma, Razali argued that it was possible to engage the ruling generals in dialogue. His softly-softly approach seemed to yield results. A year ago, he brokered the release of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi after 19 months of house arrest and secured what he thought was a firm commitment from junta boss General Than Shwe to negotiate with her about the country's political future. But last Saturday, Razali was back to square one, struggling once again to persuade the generals to release Suu Kyi after they stashed her in what they euphemistically called "protective custody." As TIME went to press, Razali was still being denied access to her. But he insisted: "Suu Kyi must be released."

If Razali was being unusually blunt, it was because the events of May 30—as pieced together from the accounts of eyewitnesses and diplomats—were startlingly vicious even by this regime's own ruthless standards. That night, Suu Kyi, 57, was traveling with 300 followers in a motorcade of cars and motorbikes on a meet-the-people tour to rally support for her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). As her convoy weaved down an unlit country road near the hamlet of Depayin in northern Burma, it arrived at a narrow bridge over an irrigation ditch. "It's a choke point," says a Western diplomat, "the perfect place for an ambush."

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Suddenly, two pickup trucks carrying men with shaved heads and religious robes pulled up to the bridge and implored the cars to stop so they could pay their respects to Suu Kyi. They looked like Buddhist monks, but area residents told TIME these men were actually convicts plucked from a prison in nearby Mandalay. As some of Suu Kyi's aides alighted to speak with the "monks," several truckloads of men from the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a military-backed civilian group, turned up wearing white armbands and blocked the motorcade front and back while other thugs spilled out of the woods lining the road. They were armed like gang members on a rampage, brandishing sharpened bamboo staves, clubs, metal cudgels, bricks and stones.

The assailants pelted the cars, shattered windows and rammed their staves at the passengers. Soldiers wielding guns arrived, and shots rang out. Several witnesses said Suu Kyi suffered cuts to her face, shoulder and hands from shards of glass. Others claim she was beaten with sticks. Tin Oo, her 76-year-old NLD vice chairman, was severely clubbed and may have been shot. The attackers set upon anyone without a white armband, impaling them, stripping women, splitting open skulls. When the bloodletting subsided, 40 to 80 of Suu Kyi's supporters lay dead. Soldiers carted her off, along with Tin Oo and 17 youth members of her party, to an unknown destination, though some reports place her in a military base near Rangoon.

The generals blame the clash on the NLD and claim that only four died. But few doubt they orchestrated the attack as part of a crackdown against Suu Kyi, who warned weeks ago that the junta's thugs were monitoring her rallies and harassing her supporters. When the generals released Suu Kyi last May, they reckoned she was a spent force after years of suppression. They dreamed too that her freedom would lead to an economic windfall, with the U.S. and the European Union lifting sanctions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund extending rich loans and foreigners flocking to invest in Burma. "Than Shwe thought there would be rewards just for releasing her," says David Steinberg, a Burma expert at Georgetown University. Instead, Western nations kept calling for the freedom of 1,300 political prisoners and for democratic reforms that never came. Meanwhile, Suu Kyi drew unnervingly large crowds on trips into Burma's hinterland to open NLD branches. And the economy continued to implode. Semilegal finance companies collapsed, and angry depositors raced to yank their savings out of failing banks. Businesses couldn't make their payrolls, and thousands of workers were laid off.

This combustible mix of economic hardship, increased political activity and simmering resentment against the regime loosely resembled the conditions that led to the 1988 democracy uprising, which the military brutally crushed. "The generals saw her crowds growing larger," says a diplomat, "and decided they had to stop it." Now, Burma has been locked down. The military has shut all NLD offices nationwide, put party leaders under house arrest and closed universities—traditional flash points of protest. Witnesses to the attack are in hiding and being hunted by security forces. And the generals? Says Aung Zaw, a Burmese opposition figure in exile in Thailand: "They will hang on to the last bullet."

• Robert Horn / Bangkok
• Dashing hopes of democracy, Burma's junta turns deadly—and again locks up Aung San Suu Kyi