when we hear reports from other protest areas that troops are refusing to fire at their own brethren, one smells a sea change in the institutional culture of the junta’s war machine.

The monks are winning. A new dawn is on the horizon.

Buddhism and its monasteries have for centuries been the catalystic force that mobilised the masses against unjust rulers. Buddhism has deep roots in both rural and urban Burma; it is the bond that unites the main groups: the dominant Burmese, the Shans, the Mons, the Karens and the Arakanese; the monasteries are the meeting places where the rich and the powerful meet the poor and the downtrodden.

The “Metta (or Loving Kindness) Army” of Buddhist monks that we have seen on our television screens snaking through the city streets have posed the greatest challenge to the Armed Forces since their creation in 1941.