The struggle unfolding in Burma is unequal. Only one side is equipped to win, the side that murdered 3,000 people the last time they sought their freedom. Sandy Barronreports from Bangkok
A week that began with prayers and a suddenly electrifying hope was on a grim plunge downward by late yesterday evening as Rangoon faced another night of curfews, raids and a new and frightening unknown.
Protesters whose numbers and determination rose fast following last Saturday's shock reappearance of the detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had by yesterday failed to fade from the streets.
Instead they were continuing to put themselves in the line of fire of an equally determined Burmese military bent on stopping the biggest threat to their rule in two decades.
In the stand-off between the two unequal contestants, only one side seems equipped to win.
As phone and internet connections out of the country were fast shutting down yesterday, the numbers of estimated civilian casualties and fatalities at the hands of the military was rising, with the Australian foreign ministry suggesting that deaths had reached "multiples of 10".
Burmese state-controlled media reported that nine people had died. Reports from civilian sources in the country estimated the figure at about 100.
It was impossible to know the truth. Rangoon was in lockdown and it was unclear how events were unfolding in other urban centres such as Mandalay in the north as communication lines went increasingly silent.
This is Burma's darkest hour since 1988, when about 3,000 people were killed in the military's brutal crackdown against the hugely popular pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Thousands more fled the country and still live in exile in neighbouring countries such as Thailand and India as well as further afield.
In the long years of worsening poverty and continued political repression since 1988, no evidence has emerged to suggest that the junta which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has shifted from an unbending authoritarianism.
That is why is difficult to understate - perhaps even to understand - the truly extraordinary bravery of those who have taken to the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay, and other centres around the country this week.
No one knows the uncompromising character of the regime better than the Burmese who struggle to survive under it. The marchers know they risk their freedom and their lives.
For reasons that remain hard to fully fathom, they must also now be spurred on by hope that this time something can change.
A huge hike in the price of petrol and thus virtually all basic necessities for daily life was the catalyst for the initial protests that began more than a month ago by the group of former student leaders and political prisoners known as the "88 generation".
Members of the group led by the activist Min Ko Naing were soon rounded up and he and many others are now back in the jails they had only fairly recently vacated after serving about 14-year sentences for their activities in 1988.
When Buddhist monks then took up the cause of protesting against the new economic hardships to begin peaceful marches and prayers over a week ago, and when the monks were subsequently - and still rather mysteriously - allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi who has been in forced seclusion for three years - pent-up hopes were ignited and the stage was set for the current stand-off.
The extraordinary events have galvanised the "parallel Burma" of exiled activists, former prisoners, politicians, and media based in often struggling obscurity for the last two decades in neighbouring and western countries.
Through their contacts who take enormous risks with phones, cameras and internet inside the country, Burmese exile media have done most to ensure that the images and details of this crackdown, unlike that of 1988, have reached the rest of the world.
Web and print outlets such as the Irrawaddy based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Mizzima in India and the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio station have been the conduits for much of the flow of disturbing pictures and information reaching international television and print media this week.
Last night it seemed clear that many lines of communication were being cut and that from today information flows will be more difficult.
Also waiting in suspense on the outside amid the current crackdown are the hundreds of thousands of mainly ethnic refugees living in flimsy refugee camps or as illegal migrants in Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia. The Karen and other ethnic groups who have fled human rights abuses such as forced labour, forced portering, extrajudicial killings and the burnings of their villages have sheltered in rudimentary refugee camps on the border with Thailand for more than 20 years.
This week some were waiting to board aircraft taking them to be resettled in the west.
Ireland recently accepted its first Karen refugees who are staying in Ballyhaunis in Co Mayo.
If Burma's political situation were to change, the huge exodus out of the country - well over three million over the last two decades - would likely go into something of a reverse.
It has been a long wait for the very many who have not seen family members or home for years.
However, right now it's clear that's it is much too soon to look ahead. Aung San Suu Kyi's famous message of years ago was the call for "freedom from fear". That time has not come yet.
Sandy Barron is an Irish journalist living in Thailand who has been to Burma many times.