YANGON, Sept 22: The wave of anti-government demonstrations sweeping Myanmar touched the doorstep of the country’s democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi, as Buddhist monks allowed to march past her home on Saturday said they were greeted by the detained political leader.

The encounter — described by a monk speaking to a crowd of anti-government protesters and confirmed by several witnesses — ties together a month of rising protests against the ruling military’s economic policies with Myanmar’s decades-old uphill struggle for democracy.

It also sets up the possibility of a violent confrontation, as the ruling junta seems increasingly forced to decide whether to crack down or to compromise with the demonstrators, whose numbers have grown as monks have taken to spearheading the protests.“The fact that the monks are coming out is going to give people confidence. We’re going to see the marches escalating,” said Larry Jagan, a Bangkok-based journalist specialising in Myanmar.

He predicted that by the middle of next week, students and others will join the march and “the numbers are going to be astronomical.”

“It’s clear that we’ve got to the tipping point, that this is the beginning of the end,” for the military government, he said.

The junta is known for favouring force over talk, and has never backed down in previous confrontations with the pro-democracy movement.—AP