BANGKOK: Buddhist monks risked their lives to defy Myanmar’s military junta, leading mass protests in a ‘saffron revolution’, but the lack of progress since suggests little hope of swift reform.

No one could have predicted the spectacular demonstrations that unfolded in Yangon and in other towns around the country in September — although the military’s deadly response was depressingly familiar.

The protests began in anger at an overnight hike in fuel prices on Aug 15 which left many unable to afford even the bus fare to work.

The movement swelled three weeks later after soldiers beat a group of monks in the religious centre of Pakokku and then refused to apologise.

After that, monks around the country began marching in the streets in their distinctive-coloured robes — hence ‘saffron revolution’ — against the regime in what snowballed into the biggest threat to the junta in nearly 20 years.

At the peak of the demonstrations, tens of thousands of monks led large crowds of protesters through the streets of Yangon on Sept 24 and 25.

But when the military decided to crack down, the repression was brutal as security forces opened fire.

“The process of change in Myanmar is going to be long, painful and evolutionary. There simply isn’t a silver bullet,” said Zarni, a Myanmar exile and professor at Oxford University.

The best hope for Myanmar, he said, is to wait for the inevitable transition in leadership, as the 74-year-old military supremo Than Shwe eventually hands power to a younger clique that could be more open to change.

“In the short term, there’s no reason for optimism,” one diplomat said.

In the immediate aftermath of the suppression, military trucks scoured the near-deserted streets of Yangon with loudspeakers warning that protesters had been identified and would be arrested.

Nearly three months on, despair and resignation weigh down the people, but even the regime has been traumatised by what it did against the monks, who are considered inviolable in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, the UN official said.—AFP