The man known to his fans as Zarganar is used to being locked up for nothing, but even by the standards of the Burmese dictatorship his present spot of bother is almost comically outrageous.

Two years ago he was banned from performing the comedy sketches that made him a national star, because too many of his jokes were about the military dictatorship. Last October he was incarcerated for three weeks for giving food and water to monks who were demonstrating against the regime. On Wednesday night ten policemen turned up at his home in Rangoon and took him away for questioning about his latest crime - supplying food and shelter to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta.

Zarganar is the latest and most prominent of a series of Burmese social activists to be arrested for their work in helping the victims of the cyclone. His detention underlines one of the most compelling aspects of the disaster and the aid effort that has followed - the way that it threatens the totalitarian rule of Burma's junta and its leader, General Than Shwe. In a country traumatised by the suppression of last year's democracy demonstrations, the delivery of humanitarian aid is close to being a political act.

For the past month Zarganar has led a team of more than 400 comedians, actors, directors, writers and activists delivering aid to some of the remotest villages in the delta. They have transported food, water, blankets and radios to people who had no help from either the military regime, the United Nations or international NGOs, many of them confined to Rangoon.

They have not explicitly articulated their opposition to the Government, and the support many of them have for the imprisoned democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But, in the absence of a systematic aid effort by the Government, any private programme is a silent reproach to the generals.

As well as soliciting donations and handing out aid, the volunteers filmed the conditions they found and circulated them by e-mail and CD, as an antidote to the sanitised reporting of the state media. The list of objects seized from his home indicates the paranoia of the regime. They included $1,000 of donations, films of the villages, footage of the tastelessly lavish wedding of the daughter of General Than Shwe and Burma's hottest clandestine video, strictly banned by the regime - Rambo 4, in which Sylvester Stallone takes on and defeats the junta.

Members of Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, have also driven supplies down to the disaster zone, as have monks from several monasteries. The last time that Buddhist monks mobilised was in September when they held mass demonstrations, that were violently suppressed. Their resurgence must give the generals anxious pause.

It's the way he tells 'em

George Bush, Hu Jintao (China’s President) and General Than Shwe (Burma’s military leader) visit God

Bush: “When will the US become the most powerful nation in the world?”

God: “Not in your life” (Bush cries)

Mr Hu: “When will China become the richest nation in the world?”

God: “Not in your life” (tears from Hu)

Finally, General Than Shwe asks when his country will have enough water and electricity. God breaks into tears and says: “Not in my life!”

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