Not since 1988 has the 45-year rule of the generals in Burma faced such a determined challenge. Daily processions of saffron-clad monks, a sit-in at a police station, and a nationwide network of protesting bonzes calling for democratic change has jolted the junta.
Today, the Alliance of All Burma Monks invited ordinary citizens to join them in the streets from the first time and more than 30,000 demonstrated in the capital, Rangoon.
The demonstrations now into their eighth day were triggered by a doubling the price of oil. The average citizen of Rangoon can no longer even afford a bus home. One-third of the children under the age of five suffer malnutrition. Millions have been reduced to only one meal a day. The tragedy of Burma is fast approaching African dimensions of deprivation created by an oriental despotism..
After independence Burma, along with the Philippines, led South-East Asia in literacy, education and development - far ahead of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. But since the military coup staged in 1962 by General Ne Win, a potentially wealthy country with abundant natural resources, including oil and natural gas, has slithered backwards under the guidance of a totally inept, kleptocratic and brutal junta.
On Saturday, 10,000 monks made a procession in Mandalay. In towns across the country they have come out on to the streets braving the dictatorship and challenging the state of fear that has ruled for decades. Other protests are quickly nipped in the bud, activists carted off to jail, and routinely tortured. Many have died in custody.
In Rangoon, the monks fearlessly swept past the police barricades around the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the persecuted opposition party the National League for Democracy, who has been held under house arrest ever since her election victory in 1990. She held an impromptu meeting with the monks and joined them in prayers. "The Lady" - as everyone calls her - remains the one great hope for a new Burma.
A potent feature of the protests has been the declaration by the monks' union of "patam nikkujjana kamma" - a boycott of alms from members of the military regime, or simply overturning their bowls instead of collecting food. One young monk justified this ban on the armed forces as equivalent to excommunication in the Christian church. This sanction includes a refusal to conduct funeral and weddings services and a ban on other Buddhist ceremonies for members of the military.
Attempts by the generals to curry favour with temples to offer alms, and donate handsome gifts to senior abbots have failed to win the blessing of the majority of monks.
Monks were prominent against British colonial rule in this predominantly Buddhist country. Two well-known monks, U Wisara and U Ottama, were imprisoned by the British for their nonviolent resistance, and U Wisara died in jail after a hunger strike lasting 166 days.
In August 1988 monks helped to inspire a peaceful uprising against the regime that came close ousting it, but the generals recovered and ordered all-out suppression of pro-democracy crowds in the street.
In Burma the chances of any so-called "velvet revolution" as happened recently in the Ukraine and in parts of Eastern Europe appears to be highly unlikely. In 1988, besieged by massive popular protests, the generals ordered their troops to shoot unarmed demonstrators in their thousands.
Since 1988 bloodbath the generals have massively expanded their army and security services, and switched the capital from Rangoon to the obscure ultra-secure town of Naypyitaw, well-protected from the people that they rule. They have never deviated from their iron-fisted determination to cling on to power despite international lobbying for dialogue with the opposition - intimidated but never silenced.
But after the military, it is the Buddhist monks who represent the most important institution in Burma today - revered by almost everybody. Are we heading for another showdown? The civilian population has enthusiastically cheered the stand taken by the monks but remains wary of what happened in 1988.
If massive bloodshed is to be averted, the EU, Buddhist countries and South-East Asian nations all need to act now, putting human rights before trade, and to act in respect the heroism of buddhist monks in Burma. With the junta still a little rattled by these rolling demonstrations of defiance there is a rare window of opportunity for the world to help the Burmese people. If the EU and Burma's neighbours were to speak with one voice, warning the regime against another 1988, it could make a difference.
Sanctions can only work where there is an overwhelming consensus of nations about the pariah status of a regime. South Africa under apartheid was the classic example. Just as the Zimbabwe disaster should be on the conscience of Africa, so Burma is the special responsibility of South-East Asian nations (Asean). The generals need to be told that more atrocities will result in punishment: to kick them out of Asean; a suspension of all tourist links. And it is above all the voice of Asian countries - Asean, India and China - that should be heading efforts to avert a disaster.
