At the same time, the government tried to play down the significance of the monks’ actions. It issued statements over the weekend suggesting the monks were organized by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, with the support of Western embassies, aimed at undermining the government.

Since Aug. 19, pro democracy groups have been staging street protests over the government’s decision to increase fuel prices by as much as 500 percent. Pro-junta supporters have beaten protesters and authorities have arrested dozens.

The protests took a more confrontational tone last week in northern Myanmar, when Buddhist monks — angry at being beaten up for protesting the economic conditions — temporarily took officials hostage and later smashed a shop and a house belonging to junta supporters.

Monks also reportedly formed a group over the weekend called the National Front of Monks, according to the pro democracy group US Campaign For Burma. The front has demanded that authorities apologize for the violence, reduce fuel prices, release all political prisoners and begin negotiations with Suu Kyi and other democratic leaders.

It was impossible to independently verify the existence of the new group nor its demands.

The violence involving the monks has prompted authorities to post plainclothes police and junta supporters for the first time at monasteries in the key Buddhist cities of Pakokku and Mandalay, as well as the country’s largest city of Yangon, to prevent further protests from the revered monks, witnesses said.

Authorities accused Suu Kyi’s NLD of organizing the monks to demonstrate and maliciously blaming government supporters for attacking the monks, which prompted “agitated mobs to destroy the homes and shops of those whom they had falsely accused.”

“By observing the incidents which occurred in Pakokku city, the real intention of the NLD vividly shows that they have been trying to seize the state power by a short cut through inciting unrest like in 1988,” the government said in a rare statement to the media.

Historically, monks in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have been at the forefront of protests, first against British colonialism and later military dictatorship, and played a prominent part in the failed 1988 pro-democracy rebellion that sought an end to military rule, imposed since 1962. It was brutally crushed by the military.

The junta held general elections in 1990, but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi’s NLD won. Suu Kyi has been detained under house for more than 11 years.

The government’s four-page statement, sent to The Associated Press Sunday, also alleged that top activists planned terrorist acts and received tens of thousands of dollars from Western nations. The junta’s information committee also alleged that prominent activist Htay Kywe, who escaped a security dragnet last month, was helped to hide by the embassy of a “powerful country” — an apparent reference to the United States, one of the regime’s harshest critics.

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