BURMA:The numbers of dead, injured, missing and detained are impossible to verify, and detentions are continuing, writes a Special Correspondentin Rangoon
As people in Rangoon weigh the price of the recent protests, one new set of figures is doing the rounds.
The cost of bribing a guard to expedite the release of a detainee can be more than $100 (€70.73) or as little as $10, according to reliable sources in the city, where businesses are open and running again but people are still holding their breath.
"I gave a friend 150,000 kyats [ more than $100] to get their relative out," said a woman in her 30s who cannot be named and was herself held briefly by soldiers last week.
It is estimated that about 80 civilians and some monks, none of them leaders, were released each day on Wednesday and Thursday, but numbers cannot be verified.
Monks are being detained at a technology institute near the airport. Civilians are being held at the "Kyaikkasan playground", the city's former famous race course from the British colonial period.
The numbers of dead, injured, missing and detained are impossible to verify. Estimates heard this week on the number of people dead varied between dozens and 200, including monks and civilians, while a few hundred civilians and more than 1,000 monks are estimated to have been arrested.
But the detentions are continuing, mainly at night during the 10pm to 4am curfew.
At the eastern gate of the Shwedagon pagoda, the country's most venerated Buddhist temple, traders of religious artifacts were taken away on Wednesday, many days after last week's clashes at the site between the military and marchers.
They were taken "for marching with the monks, or protecting the monks, or because of what they saw", said a veteran political analyst.
On Thursday, the normally bustling and warren-like streets remained active but much quieter than usual, with just a few lone monks and nuns seen in an area usually buzzing with monastics going about in sociable groups.
Similarly quiet are the city's 200-odd cybercafes, as outside internet access remains closed off. But the stories of last week's astonishing internet activity are very much alive.
"It was amazing," said a small downtown business owner who watched events unfold on the street around him last week.
"First, people just started taking pictures of the marches and running into cafes to send them off. Then military intelligence came and started taking pictures of people taking pictures."
But then, "and this was the really new part, people started taking pictures of the military taking pictures of them. Next day, I saw no more spies taking pictures."
Like most others in the immediate area around the Sule pagoda, the businessman found himself running for cover last week. "At first I heard very loud shots and I knew from 1988 [ when the city last saw huge pro-democracy demonstrations] that this meant the soldiers were firing in the air.
"So I shouted to people, 'don't run, they are only shooting in the air'. But then the shots got quieter and I knew - now they were firing at people. So then we really ran."
Most of Rangoon's regular shops and food stalls have opened again and a first-time visitor might find it hard to believe that people were running for cover on these same streets last week.
But while a semblance of normality has been restored on the surface, the mood remains uncertain and tense. "This is not over," said the veteran analyst. "It's not even about the numbers now [ of dead and missing]. People here respect monks so much they don't even want to walk in their shadow. So they can't understand what has happened; they can't accept it. They will not forget this."
A former political prisoner echoed that view. "Last week's protest couldn't have succeeded. It didn't have a strategy, or really any leadership. It just arose. The NLD [ National League for Democracy] should have stepped in, offered something, put some kind of compromise offer on the table.
"But the most significant thing is that now the younger generation has woken up. They have gone from apathy to anger."