Until the generals revoked his performance licence Zarganar was one of the funniest men in Burma but when I met him in Rangoon, in May this year two weeks after the cyclone, there were few jokes to be cracked or laughs to be had.

He had just returned from another trip to the Irrawaddy delta, bearing film of the scenes in some of remote villages stricken by the storm — heartbreaking, stomach-turning images of rotting bodies, desperate people and government neglect.

Zarganar is always careful to emphasise that he is not a political activist. He kept his distance from the National League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi and the 88 Generation of student activists and with good reason — to declare yourself a member of the political opposition in Burma these days is to resign yourself to constant spying, low- level harassment and probably arrest and imprisonment. His band of film-makers, actors and celebrities consciously avoided direct engagement with the junta’s politics. But the work to which they committed themselves — raising and distributing aid to the victims of the cyclone — was inescapably political. By their discipline, efficiency and humility, Zarganar’s people, who deliberately avoided identifying themselves with the name of any organisation, showed up the incompetence, indifference and arrogance of the Government.

Their status as celebrities gave them a kind of protection that ordinary citizens did not enjoy.

To arrest Zarganar (his stage name, which he adopted as a student of dentistry, means Tweezers), would have been like arresting Rowan Atkinson or Ricky Gervais.

Twice before he was hauled in by the police, only to be released after a few days or weeks.

This time, it seems, his luck has run out. It could be years, even decades, before the junta decides to free him.

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