Myanmar's military government issued the country's Buddhist clergy a veiled threat of reprisals after monks led 100,000 people on the biggest pro-democracy march the country has seen in nearly two decades.

Buddhist monks march in Yangon, Myanmar, on Sept. 24. AP PHOTO

The warning Sept. 24 shows the pressure the junta is under to crack down on or compromise with a reinvigorated democracy movement. The monks have taken their traditional role as the conscience of society, backing the military into a corner from which it may lash out again.

The authorities did not stop the Sept. 24 protests, even as they built to a scale and fervor that rivaled the pro-democracy uprising of 1988, when the military fired on peaceful crowds and killed thousands, terrorizing the country. The government has been handling the monks gingerly, wary of raising the ire of ordinary citizens in the devout, predominantly Buddhist nation.

However, on the night of Sept. 24, the country's religious affairs minister appeared on state television to accuse the monks of being manipulated by the regime's enemies.

Meeting with senior monks at Yangon's Kaba Aye Pagoda, Brig. Gen. Thura Myint Maung said the protesting monks represented just 2 percent of the country's population. On Sept. 25, the junta banned gatherings of more than five people and imposed a curfew on the nation between dusk and dawn.

The protests began Aug. 19 after the government raised fuel prices in what is one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in dissatisfaction with the repressive government that has ruled the country in one form or another since 1962.