General Ne Win, the founder of military authoritarianism in Burma, was secretly trained during World War II by the fascist-allied military regime of Japan. Four decades later, during the 1988 popular uprising in Burma, the general warned that when Burma's army shoots, it shoots to kill. That year, thousands of protesters were killed on the streets of Burma. Little has changed in the country during the intervening two decades. As such, it was not particularly surprising this past September when, during the massive public uprising that has since been dubbed the 'Saffron Revolution', Burmese soldiers shot and killed over 100 citizens. That number included members of the country's venerated clergy.
Although public demonstrations had been ramping up for weeks, the Saffron Revolution can be thought of as beginning on 5 September 2007, when thugs thought to be connected to the junta government attacked a group of monks in Pakokku. Doing so was in direct violation of Buddhist teachings, something of which the military had long been cognisant, largely due to the massive public support that the clergy holds in Burma. Urging the military leaders to reflect on their action, Burma's Sangha, the national council representing the country's Buddhist monks, demanded an apology from the military within 12 days. When the junta refused to do so, the clerical leaders began a religious boycott, dubbed the "overturning of the alms bowls". This was an act of severe moral rebuke, in which monks refused to accept alms from military families, thereby denying them important religious merit. This had only happened a few times before –when the Burmese people rebelled against British colonialism and, more recently, following the country's nullified 1990 elections.
Six month after the Saffron Revolution began, the All-Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA) continues to boycott Burma's military families, all the while urging the Burmese people to continue resistance against military domination. This resistance has taken several forms. On 17 January, 200 demonstrators in Taungkok, including a handful of monks, attempted to gather near a local market, where they were met with a large number of armed personnel and forced to disperse. At that time, one resident of Taungkok warned that local people continued to "boil with anger", and that the next time they would not be stopped.
Since the September uprising, student unions, activist groups, bloggers and youth wings belonging to the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) have continued spreading underground pamphlets and posters. In late December, the NLD's detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, told followers to "prepare for the worst while hoping for the best". In a particularly creative form of protest, the poet Saw Wai wrote a short poem that included a series of hidden letters spelling out the words for 'power hungry Than Shwe', referring to the junta's senior leader. The poem was published in a government-backed publication and, following his arrest on 22 January, Saw Wai's poem became an instant sensation.