Burma’s underground opposition intends to launch a campaign of civil disobedience to maintain the pressure for change on the military junta.

Moving daily between safe houses, the Burmese pro-democracy activists and monks who co-ordinated last month’s protests are planning the next stage of their fight against the ruling generals while on the run from the ongoing crackdown. With thousands of soldiers deployed on the streets and many monasteries emptied, the underground opposition now intends to launch a campaign of civil disobedience to maintain the pressure for change on the military junta.

Meanwhile, a relentless crackdown on Myanmar’s pro-democracy activists showed no sign of easing with the junta announcing on Sunday that 78 more people have been detained in spite of global outrage and new sanctions.

The activists, many of whom are veterans of the 1988 student uprising, believe this is the best opportunity in two decades to oust Senior General Than Shwe and the clique of ageing officers who run Burma. In his first public comments, the fugitive monk who led the so-called Saffron Revolution insisted that the resistance would continue but appealed for greater international pressure on the regime.

Speaking by a smuggled satellite phone from his hiding place in Burma to supporters in New York, he said:

International assistance is needed urgently...we welcome the world’s reaction but we would like the international community to be more active and effective as the junta is trying to keep power by the most violent means. Please continue all your efforts to help us.

Burmese activists worldwide are also protesting against the atrocities of Junta regime. Peaceful protests against the regime are already beginning as people gather at major pagodas, lighting candles and praying together.

It’s a clever way to protest because Buddhists always go to pagodas and monasteries to light candles and pray.

They’re going in small groups, so the police and army can’t do anything to stop it.

Activists are asking Burma’s Christians and Muslims to join the prayer campaign, but more ambitious plans for civil disobedience are emerging.

People are calling for non-co-operation with the regime and for non-attendance of factories and offices.

The monks’ leader, who used the Buddhist alias of U Gambiri, described the ongoing terror in his patch-up with New York.

The military junta is continuing its arrests and raids on the monasteries every night and every day...There are so many soldiers around the monasteries and on the streets. Our peaceful movement was met by the regime with violence. The human rights abuses are huge and monks are in hiding to avoid arrest.

In a more hopeful sign, state television broadcast footage of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time in four years. She remains under house arrest but her party expressed hopes that there might be talks with the regime.

Under mounting pressure from the West and Human Right organisations the Military Government released few monks, but diplomats are not very hopeful of any positive change in the brutal regime’s tactics towards dissent.