Former Philippine president and four-star general Fidel Ramos knows a thing or two about regime change. He was the military architect of the peaceful people-power revolution in the Philippines that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a bloodless coup in 1986.
In Rangoon and other cities of Burma, Buddhist monks have confronted the military dictatorship with an unusual technique: they refused to accept alms. In Buddhist tradition, this boycott is the ultimate insult monks can deploy. On September 26, the government finally responded to the monks’ boycott by cracking down on the protests, which attracted as many as 100,000 people at their height. Police reportedly killed one protestor, and arrested as many as 200 monks. The future of the democracy movement in Burma remains unclear.