YANGON, MYANMAR — Every breath he takes is a struggle.
Locked in a cell, held without charge because he condemned one of the military government's many brutal assaults on dissent, Ludu Sein Win suffered a stroke 28 years ago. It withered his body, but his defiant voice is still strong.
Still producing opinion pieces scrawled in shaky longhand, the journalist and author nimbly dodges censors by writing under 15 pseudonyms.
On a recent afternoon, he sat on the edge of his bed, steadying himself with frail hands pressed flat against a thin mattress.
Every few words, he paused, and pursed his lips. With all the fight left in him, Sein Win, 69, forced his lungs to wheeze in oxygen pumped through the clear plastic tube that tethers him to a machine softly bubbling at his bedside.
"I have never witnessed a dictator voluntarily relinquishing his power," said Sein Win, who was imprisoned from 1967 to 1980. "The only way to oust this regime is by force."
Many have been locked up for saying much less since the military seized control of the nation 46 years ago. Yet Sein Win refuses to be cowed. He's drawing new strength from what he calls the formidable force of young people who defied the regime to aid the victims of Tropical Cyclone Nargis.
Many believe that the surge of volunteer spirit among young people, and even well-known entertainers, and the subsequent anger over the government's fumbling response to the cyclone have served to strengthen the pro-democracy movement.
But the May disaster also gave the regime a breather. Activists say the 20th anniversary of a 1988 student-led uprising is passing without large demonstrations because they want to focus on helping cyclone victims.
That could change suddenly, some predict, if the cost of rice, fuel and other basic needs remains high.
The cyclone brought pummeling winds and surges of seawater that killed at least 85,000 people, mainly in the southern delta region. Thousands more are still missing, bringing the estimated death toll to 110,000. Five months later, the United Nations says more than 2.1 million survivors depend on food aid and other assistance.
The government relief effort was slow and bungled, and authorities tried to trip up local and foreign aid workers eager to fill the breach. Still, thousands of volunteers, mostly young people, loaded up cars, trucks and boats and headed to the cyclone zone, pushing past checkpoints set up to stop them.
