As the trial of its pro-democracy leader continues in Burma, the BBC assesses the mood of the country's opposition movement.*
To arrange an interview with the leader of the youth wing of Burma's National League of Democracy (NLD) was difficult. It had taken a week to meet him, complicated by the fact that phone calls are routinely tapped and e-mails closely monitored by the military authorities. But at last we were told to go a secret location. 
There we waited, concerned - as an hour ticked by -- that he was not coming, or perhaps had been arrested. Finally there was a knock at the door. We shook hands and sat down together. This was the man who could tell us if there were going to be any organised protests against the widely expected conviction of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced ON song SUE chi).
Election concerns
Ms. Suu Kyi is on trial on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest. Burma's generals have detained her for 13 of the past 19 years, and she has been held in the notorious Insein jail near Rangoon for almost two months. I asked the NLD activist why the government was delaying the conclusion of Ms. Suu Kyi's trial.
The opposition activist I was talking to was one of the leaders of pro-democracy protests in 1988, which followed then ruler General Ne Win's decision to suddenly devalue the currency, wiping out the savings of thousands of Burmese people. These protests were met with a violent crackdown, in which human rights groups say at least 3,000 people were killed. Soldiers sprayed automatic rifle fire into crowds of protesters, and other demonstrators were carried away in trucks and never seen again.
The NLD man I met also played a leading role in the protests in 2007, when a fuel price hike triggered anti-government demonstrations. The protests spread from monks to students, and became an uprising -- the most significant challenge to Burma's generals in almost two decades. But again there was a crackdown. At least 10 people were confirmed dead in the military's response to the protests, and many thousands more -- including many Buddhist monks -- were reportedly arrested. Amnesty International estimates that over 2,100 people are still in jail as a result.
The man I spoke was arrested after both protests, and has spent many years in prison -- but he's still not given up. More>>
