SIGNIFICANT SIGN: Ms Suu Kyi in a gesture of respect to monks praying outside her home. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

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The military - struggling to deal with the most sustained wave of anti-government protests in two decades - could still launch a bloody crackdown as it had in the past, an analyst and United Nations official warned.

The junta yesterday beefed up security on both ends of the road leading to Ms Suu Kyi's house, witnesses said, in what appeared to be an effort to prevent a repeat of Saturday's march.

A crowd of about 400 people led by monks yesterday peacefully gave up their attempt after being turned back at two different approaches to her residence, where police had placed barbed wire barricades.

Monks have been marching for the past six days in Myanmar's biggest city and around the country as a month of protests against economic hardship under the junta has ballooned into the biggest grassroots challenge to its rule since pro-democracy protests in 1988.

By linking their cause to Ms Suu Kyi's activism, which has seen her detained for about 12 of the past 18 years, the monks increased the pressure on the junta to decide whether to crack down or to compromise with the demonstrators.

'This was a very important gesture,' said Mr David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown University in Washington.

'It's significant because the military allowed them to pass (Ms Suu Kyi's house). That and other images indicate the military is not prepared, unless things get worse, to directly confront the monks in their uniforms.'

He said this was in contrast to 1990, when the military put down a protest by hundreds of monks in Mandalay, arresting and defrocking some and closing monasteries linked with the demonstration.

So far, the government has been handling the monks' disciplined but defiant protests gingerly, aware that forcibly breaking them up in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar would likely cause public outrage.

But Mr Steinberg said the military's lack of force should not be seen as a sign of weakness, given that it remains the largest and most powerful institution in the country.

'Any change (in the government) will have to be approved by elements of the military if there is to be change,' he said. 'They are far too powerful to be resisted if the military acts in unison.'

A UN official agreed, saying that, while dissident groups he had met in Bangkok last week were optimistic about the outcome, they failed to take into account the military's history of brutally suppressing uprisings in 1988, 1990 and 1996.

'They were very optimistic and expectant, and seemed to believe that there was one outcome possible, which was popular uprising that brings Suu Kyi to the forefront,' said the official, who requested anonymity, citing protocol.

'I'm not as confident that is the only outcome possible. I would think massive repression and violence on a significant scale is not to be discounted.'

Protesters seemed to have been energised after monks on Saturday succeeded in persuading the armed guards outside Ms Suu Kyi's home, where she has spent most of the last 18 years under house arrest, to let them pray for 15 minutes outside her gates.

The 62-year-old, known here simply as 'The Lady', opened the gate to her compound and pressed her hands together in a gesture of respect to the monks, then teared up as she waved to the crowd.

It was her first public appearance in four years.

Armed guards carrying shields never left the gate as the opposition leader appeared behind them.

'Today is extraordinary. We walked past lay disciple Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's house today. We are pleased and glad to see her looking fit and well,' a 45-year-old monk later told about 200 people at Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE