Thousands of Buddhist monks staged protest marches against the military junta in Myanmar for a fifth consecutive day.

More than 3,000 monks marched through the country’s largest city Yangon on Saturday, putting the authorities in a touchy situation, because the monks are highly respected in Myanmar and a possible crackdown would spark the population’s anger.

Even so, the junta is expected to make a decision shortly, because the peaceful protest is bound to draw more an more supporters which have refrained from demonstrating fearing a possible retaliation.

Nearly 2,000 monks marched barefoot through Yangon until they reached the Shwedagon Pagoda, where they continued to chant prayers and face out the military regime. A similar protest action was staged by 1,000 monks in a suburb of the city that used to be Myanmar’s capital.

Other marches were reported in the second largest city, Mandalay and other municipalities. The protests began Tuesday and continued without incidents throughout the week, with a mass demonstration being expected to take place on Sunday.

Analysts said the monks’ protest was the only move unanticipated by the junta and could lead to a long-expected change if the military doesn’t resort to violence to crush the demonstrators into submission, like it did in numerous other occasions.

For nearly two decades protests weren’t able to provide any results, because government forces immediately quelled uprisings and cracked down heavy on activists.

So far, only a part of the 100,000-strong monkhood organized peaceful protest matches after the government decided to double fuel prices last month, causing the inflation to skyrocket to unprecedented figures.

The protests erupted on August 19 and were led by political activists and opposition members from the National League for Democracy, a party led by pro-democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Monks took over the protest after the junta cracked down on demonstrators and arrested dozens.

Government gangs attacked the monks, but those reprehensible actions triggered a huge wave of demonstrations across the country. Monks staged marches in several other major cities last week and the protests continued in Yangon since Tuesday and are likely to spread and snowball into another uprising.

The core of these protests is the way Myanmar’s military junta administers the economy, people blaming the military for banning foreign investments. After the bloody clashes of 1988, some foreign investors were allowed to operate in the Asian country, but the people's discontent continues to rise hand in hand with inflation.

Even so, the international community cut off ties with Myanmar, the military regime being condemned for repeated human rights violations.